


A Legacy of Darkness

by Raynidreams



Category: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, POV Male Character, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Rescue, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-03-11 21:21:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13532787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: Rey is taken captive. Poe and Finn are forced to employ Ben's help in finding her.Problematic on many levels alas.





	1. Ahch-To

**Author's Note:**

> 1/ This is a WIP. Things might have to be tweaked as I come back and sort the story to better frame the ending.  
> 2/ Some chapter titles denote time jumps in narrative.

The man raised the hoe and let it fall to the rocky ground with his weight behind the swing. The line he ploughed grew by the inch. It was one of seven he’d dug so far. He came to the end of the free space to dig and then blotted his face with his sleeve and took a drink of water. Going back to his first row, he walked along and set beans at intervals then racked over them with a little of the sandy dirt. He was halfway through adding canes in cone shapes when he heard the boom of a ship entering the atmosphere above. He glanced up into the rare, cloudless, blue sky, shading his eyes against the late afternoon sun. He recognised the distinctive shape of the ship and his heart suffered a stab of not quite joy and not quite pain. He quickly finished the last few bean frames and then collected his tools. He made his way and got into the small sea craft he used to get between the twin main islands and the smaller scattered ones he and the caretakers used to grow crops and herd the small goats they kept for wool and milk.

The journey across the water back to the beach was easy on a fine day like this. The wind was light, so he used the oars instead of the mast. The exercise helped to settle him. By the time he reached the main islands, the freighter had landed and he could see some of its crew had disembarked and were stood up by the dwelling cells. The man secured his boat to the tiny jetty, and taking his precious tools, made his way up the stone steps without outwardly appearing to hurry. The conflicted emotions he’d felt upon seeing the freighter had settled into a warm anticipation that pooled in the pit of his stomach. He matched his breaths to each step he took, mindful of the movements through his thigh muscles, pushing up on the exhale. He ran a hand through his scruffy beard, shaking out sand as his long legs ate up the distance. At the top of the steps, he turned towards the stone settlement and paused. For the first time in several months, he permitted control of his senses to reach beyond his body. He searched and then frowned.

Something was missing. _Someone_ was missing. Outside his cell, he saw the two men but not her. His frown deepened when he sensed their anxiety. Dropping his bag of tools, the man strode quickly down the steps to meet the crew of the ship. They stiffened at his approach, and not unexpectedly, neither looked happy to see him.

A few feet away, the man came to a halt and voiced the only thing that mattered to him, “Where’s Rey?”

Opposite him, the two men he knew to be Poe Dameron and Finn, traded a glance and then looked back to him. The younger man, Finn, had a hand a hair’s breath away from his holstered thigh blaster.

Poe replied, “We were hoping you might tell us.”

The island's creatures squawked as a ringing started up in the man's ears. The sounds echoed the alarm he felt in the absence of the presence he reached out for.  _“Rey?”_  He grasped through space, searching for the familiar shape of her, but found only a shadow where he should have felt the sun.

Ben Solo pulled himself to his full height. “What happened?” he demanded.

“She's not here,” the younger man said with some finality and not to Ben. Upset flickered across his face. His hand dropped away from his blaster. “Poe, this was stupid. We—”

“Of course she's not here. There is no reason for her to be here,” Ben interrupted, drawing menace in around him like a cloud. Dressed in a tattered robe, belted with a length of rope, barefoot, and his long hair drawn back into a short tail which made his ears stand out, the command he drew around him should have seemed laughable. But it wasn't. His dark eyes glittered imperiously. “What happened?” he repeated with ominous patience.

Poe stepped up into Ben's challenge, face an inch apart. “She's missing. And if I find you had anything to fucking do with it, nothing in this whole galaxy, not the Force nor the First Fucking Order and _especially not you_  will stop me from tearing you apart!”

Ben faltered for a second, then seized the lapels of Poe's jacket. He lifted the pilot and marched him up to his cell. He slammed the shorter man into the drystone wall and brought his long nose to meet Poe's neat one. “What. Happened?” he bit out staccato.

Poe's jaw hardened, gaze as mean-looking as Ben's; Ben witnessed the man examining him, felt him use every bit of Force-less insight to poke through him. Poe traced Ben's scar with his eyes and then met his look once more. He didn't fight Ben's hold. He placed his hands over Ben's and held on tightly. “You swear you haven't seen her?”

Ben stared the man out and then dropped him. Poe equally let go. “I haven’t seen Rey in two years—you know that.” Ben, in his peripheral vision, saw that Finn had his blaster trained on him. He paid the man mind enough only to stop the shot, should it come.  
  
“But that’s not true, is it?” Poe replied angrily. He turned and kicked in the door of Ben's cell. He then marched inside.

Ben’s eyebrows drew together. He followed the pilot. “Of course it's true.”

Poe stood in the centre of the room, breathing deeply. He cast Ben a flinty look, opened his mouth to speak then shut it with an angry snap of teeth.

Finn followed them into the gloom. He sighed loudly and holstered his weapon. “She's been gone for nearly three days. She was on some scouting mission, we think, when we got a communication from her that was cut short. We flew there as quickly as possible but found her ship in pieces. We retrieved the box recorder. She was boarded first. From there...” He spread his hands wide, signalling the lack of information.

“And you suspected me?” Ben asked.

“We figured if you were not involved then perhaps you might help us find her,” Finn said calmly.

“It might have hastened things up if you'd involved my mother—unless she put you up to coming here?”

The two other men shared another silent conversation. “The General was with her when it happened,” Finn began slowly. “We found Leia barely alive in an evacuation pod. We've left her with the Resistance. She still hasn’t woken up.” Finn walked around Ben and came up to Poe's shoulder. They faced him together. “We're grasping at straws.”

Ben, agitated, paced and then reached for Rey again. This time, he found a glimmer of consciousness.  _“Rey?”_  he called. He lost sight of the two men with him. He stepped away from them, circling the cell, walking over to the stone bench where he and Rey had first touched. Through their connection, he felt her drifting in and out of awareness. She was positioned on her side, faced away from him. As always when they met, he could only see her, not her surroundings. He bent down by her side and put a hand to her shoulder. Face close to hers, he gently tugged her around to him and then reached to take her hand where it curled protectively over her stomach.

It was then that he noticed.

Her eyelashes fluttered and she sank deeper into sleep. Her image faded and his hand dropped away. His mind felt sluggish for a moment, thoughts moving like molasses before his wits kicked back in.

He put the hand he'd touched her with to his jaw and still hunkered, stared up at Poe. Ben hid his thoughts, mellowing out his expression. “She's alive,” he said. His pulse felt heavy. His blood as syrupy as his thoughts had been seconds before.

“You saw her, just then?” Poe asked. He drew closer, expression animated. “Is she hurt? What did she say? Can you see where she is?”

Ben stood slowly. “She's sedated. I only saw her for a moment. She doesn't look hurt.” He gathered control, prepared to speak evenly. “Your children are safe too. Their heartbeats sounded strong. Unless it related to her mission, I imagine it's why she has been taken and not killed.”

He watched Finn and Poe have another silent conversation of micro-gestures.

“Children—” Poe began. He swallowed.

“Any child of Rey's has the potential of her blood. Gifted like that, there will be those who seek to take advantage of that potential. And their vulnerability,” Ben said, and then muttered, “I'm sorry.”

“What do we do?” Finn asked Poe.

Ben didn't give Poe chance to reply. “I'm coming with you. If my mother is awake, she may know something. If she's not, then I might be able to reach her while unconscious to find out what happened.”

Poe rounded on him. “You're here on this island for a reason. _Remember that_. Here because none of us wanted to execute General Organa's son and because Rey said it was important that you live.”

Ben nodded. “I know. But if we want to find her, I'm your best shot, and you know it—unless there is something you aren't telling me?”

Finn, reasonable once more, said, “We need to move and we _do_ need your help.”

Poe's face twitched. “If you betray us, my threat stands. I swear.”

Finn’s composure also dropped. “It’s a promise, Ren.”

Ben regarded them both and then let his mask slide. He wasn't sure what his face emoted. “If that happens, I hope I still have the power to let you,” he replied.

***

They moved quickly. At the beach, Chewie waited with a young woman Ben had met once before, his first day here. He nodded at Rose and then let his eyes slide to the wookiee...His father's best friend. The wookiee gave Ben a cool greeting and Ben had to take a shaking breath before he replied. “I know.”

He gazed up at the battered old freighter quietly before boarding.

Behind him, he missed what he was being asked at first. He turned to the caretaker who had followed him. She repeated her question.

“I did and I will,” Ben replied.

“What did she say?” Rose asked him as he walked up the gangway.

He knew Rose was Rey's close friend and that Rey went to her and Finn when she needed to see a brighter aspect on the world around her. He might not have replied otherwise. He'd never had time for small talk. “She asked if I had finished the beans and if I was coming back.”

“Oh,” the young woman said.

“What?” Ben asked, glower in place as he took in the cargo bay.

“I don't know. It's just the idea of you, planting beans. It seems a little...underwhelming.”

Even Ben sensed the glimmer of humour in it. Had he been his father, he might have winked at the pretty woman, given her a smile. Instead, deadpan, he replied, “Yesterday I knitted.”

He left her open mouthed and ventured into the lounge space, not willing to get any closer to the cockpit then absolutely necessary. The others moved around him as if he was contagious, which, as the thought came to Ben, he realised wasn't too far off the mark. Poe followed Chewie, to pilot. Finn sat by the dejarik table next to Rose. Ben remained standing alone.

The island dropped away from them and the sky turned black, and then rushed into light, as the pilots engaged the hyperdrive. It all happened so apace, the hand Ben put out wasn't quite just to steady himself against the movement of the ship. As the urgency lapsed into limbo, them all powerless to shift any quicker, it took him a while to realise that the quiet wasn't the normal silence he had grown used to over the last couple of years of relative solitude. Ben ran his teeth over his lower lip when he realised that the subdued atmosphere wasn't also just due to concern for Rey. It was additionally because of his presence. Naturally.

Rose glanced at him, away, then back. She mumbled, asking him if he wanted a drink. He declined. He understood that a part of his penance was for him to be aware of the needs of others and so he turned and left Rose and Finn, walking towards where he knew the head was to spare them from being around him.

Poe ground to a standstill as he rounded into the lounge and met Ben exiting. “Where are you going?”

Ben didn't pause. “To wash.”

He went to turn right and then dithered. He looked down at his robe and something came back to him. He ducked back into the lounge, on towards where the lockers were. It had been a long time, but his father had been sentimental, and what were a few old human clothes to Jakku scavengers? He went to the third locker along and looked at the combination. The lock had been broken and refitted with a metal catch. He unclipped it. Inside, drawn on the metal, there was an old clumsy picture of an X-Wing but nothing else. He heard a soft step behind him and smelt wookiee musk.

He turned but found it took every bit of willpower to meet those brown eyes. There were very few creatures taller than him, but Chewbacca made those few extra inches a mile. Ben felt very small when the bag he'd been looking for was thrown at him. He clasped it with numb fingers.

 _“Han hid our stuff when we lost the ship. We always knew we'd get it back_ ,” Chewie told him. His purrs were haunted with the accents wookiees use only for close family. Ben nodded, his chest tight.

***

Inside the head, he paused, head down before he looked in the mirror. Over the last two years he'd seen what he looked like just a handful of times, on those rare days when the sun shone fully and the freshwater butt caught the light to reflect his image. On all of those occasions, he'd looked away quickly, not wanting to see. Now, he puffed out a breath and then forced his arms straight, trapping his focus directly on his face. The man he saw was unrecognisable to him.

His black hair was shaggy and hung lank down his back. His beard obscured the scarring down his cheek, but not around his eye. His nose was red with windburn - he looked like a damn pirate. He shook his hair loose from the string that held it and then undid the belt around his robe. The itchy material fell away from his trim body. He wore nothing beneath. Ben ran a hand down his stomach and over his ribs. The muscles he'd had before were leaned down from working the soil and the simple fresh meals he ate. His once elegant hands were calloused as were his feet. He straightened his shoulders and abdominal muscles, and felt the taught skin move over them. He stretched and popped his joints. Ben then rummaged in the bag that Chewie had thrown at him. He found an old fashioned razor. It seemed the best place to start, and looking in the mirror, he took a chunk of his hair and cropped it to an inch below his ears. He proceeded to level the rest of his hair off and then lathered up the cake of soap in the sink, spreading it over his face. He shaved neatly, wiping away the excess foam. When he looked back in the mirror, he realised he appeared younger without all the hair. Tracing his scar with a fingertip, he also realised it was fainter. The others on his body were also smoother: time having not removed them but made them softer, less angry.

He collected the cut hair and flushed it down the toilet. He then ran the sink again, and beginning with his feet, scoured every inch of his body with a thickly bristled brush. He took his time, mindful of the action while also reaching out, searching to see if he could contact Rey. She remained elusive, sunk in a narcotised fugue.

Clean, Ben looked again in the bag. The clothes in there would not have fit his brawn form two years ago, but would the honed leanness his new life brought. He'd been seventeen the last time he wore them; adult height, but trim, much as he was now. The boots he found were soft, and the tailored pants black. His shirt was off-white. The man that looked back at him in the mirror when dressed could still have been Ben Solo, heir to Leia Organa. He could have been that boy, were it not for the scar and the undercurrent of internalised fury. He suppressed the urge to put his fist through the glass and exited the cubicle. Walking back into the lounge, he noticed that no one was talking much still. The crew worked at various jobs with a keenness bordering on the obsessive. The silence between them wasn't natural and it felt like a physical thing weighing them down.

Ben cleared his throat. Reluctant eyes found him. He saw them take in his appearance and then glance at each other. “How long until we exit lightspeed?” he asked. He moved to the corner of the room and leaned up against the wall. It felt sturdy against his back, offering ballast he desperately needed. He felt like he'd been balanced on quicksand since hearing the boom of the ship enter the sky. If he was being honest, from well before then. He allowed his body to flow down the wall until he squatted.

“Some hours,” Rose replied.

He took a shaky breath, seeking information. Rey was the only thing on his mind. “How many months pregnant is Rey? Is it a danger she could give birth anytime soon?”

Rose shifted uncomfortably. “They said you could hear their heartbeats? This stress, it could do Rey and the girls untold damage.”

Ben looked at his hands draped between his knees. “Twin girls?” He considered platitudes but completely thinking over the situation, he became annoyed. “Why were my mother and Rey alone? Rey's never to be reckoned with, nor is my mother, but another thing they are not is stupid. My mother, she especially knows the danger, only too well.” He pinned Poe a look as he grappled with irritation. “How could you let them out of your sight?”

The pilot stamped over, closer to Ben, gazing down at him intently with a probing look. “She's over eight months along, so yes, the danger of her giving birth there is real. And no, I didn't let them go. I didn't know they were going, and even if I had, I can't very well order my superior to base or tell a Jedi to not wander off,” the pilot replied. “Besides, the biggest danger to them has always been you.”

Ben surged to his feet, fists and teeth clenched. He heard the click of weapons being drawn. He reined in the rage, just barely, and counted heartbeats until it started to trickle from him.

Rose came up into the foot-worth of no man's land between them. She placed a wary hand out. “I think we've all had enough of the pissing contest, gentleman. We can't help Rey if we're fighting among ourselves.” She put the hand to Poe's stomach and put a gentle pressure on him to step back. The pilot narrowed his eyes but followed that soft persuasion, his chest heaving.

Ben eased back also. Eyes closed, he said, “You're right.” He banged his head lightly on the wall behind him. “I'll do everything in my power to help you find her, Dameron.”

“I think you should stop talking now,” Poe told him briskly before he marched out.

Ben silently agreed.

***

The _Falcon_ exited lightspeed sometime later. Ben overheard Chewie and Poe in the cockpit speak to Command. “We're sending the codes now. Advance warning, we have Kylo Ren with us. We'll need an armed escort but no one who is too trigger happy and no one who has had direct contact with him previously.”

Ben shuttered down his emotional response to this by clearing his face of any expression.

He heard Chewie growl out a question which Poe translated. “Has the General come round?”

Ben couldn't hear the reply, but he felt Poe's disappointment. He stood when Finn swung back into the lounge area from where he'd been with them. Finn informed everyone how they were ready to set down. He then asked Ben, “You've no weapons on you, have you?”

“None. In my pack, only a razor. I'll leave it here.”

“Good. Don't give them an excuse to shoot you." Finn then held up some cuffs.

Ben acknowledged that with a twitch of his jaw.

The ship docked and Ben followed Poe. Finn, Rose, and Chewie fell in behind. They moved down the _Falcon’s_ ramp, towards the hanger. The base they had come to was like many the Rebels had used over the years. Set into the bedrock, with a blast-door to hide them from scanning detection. It was a simple design but if it wasn't broken, there was no need to fix it. Briefly, Ben's mind returned to the last time he'd confronted the rebels in such a place, on Crait. The taste of salt in the dry air, the blood red ore. He thought about Luke and Rey and then he forced his mind to concentrate solely on placing one foot in front of the other and nothing else until he looked up, coming to a halt behind Poe. Before them were a ring of armed rebels. A part of him sneered—there was nothing here he couldn't stop. Another part of him, the older part, longed for the time when he would have been the boy stood at the back of that crowd.

Poe addressed the men and women before him. “As you know, until the General recovers, I'm acting head of the fleet. Rey, our Force user, has been taken. And since Kylo Ren's defection back to our side, he is a prisoner with a 'no kill order' on his head. He's here to consult and to help us find Rey. No attempt should be made on his life, but, should he act in violation of his imprisonment,” Poe swung back and glared directly at Ben. “The decision for him to be shot on sight will be given by me, or when she wakes, General Organa. Is that clear?”

Ben wondered what constituted as a violation but then realised he didn't care. They were wasting time. The urgency now that they had landed came back to him threefold. He once more tried to reach for Rey, but could only find the blankness of deep, dreamless, sleep.

Poe turned back to the rebels. Carefully Ben leaned close to his ear. “Take me to the General,” he said.

***

Leia lay on a medical cot with a screen over her face. That her heartbeat was strong was all Ben was able to make out from a quick glance at the various readings. She looked defenceless, which would vex her. He watched her chest rise and fall for a second then asked, “Take these off?”

Finn hesitated and then removed the cuffs. Ben let them drop and considered Leia. It had been two years since he'd seen her in that oh-so-brief and dreadful meeting, and before that...it seemed like a lifetime. They had felt one another though, at one battle or another. His decision in the cockpit not to shoot came back to him with the sense of her passing when the First Order pilots with him had done what he could not. Standing before her now, he was assailed again by how quiet his mother's mind was. Unlike others, whose thoughts lay close to the surface, his mother had always been a closed book to him. She had natural protective mind barriers; ones which not even his grandfather had been able to breach. Leia had always been the strong one in their family. It was the men who were weak.

“Get on with it,” Poe, who stood behind him ordered, breaking Ben's chain of thought.

He inclined his head to show compliance. His feet felt laden as he approached and then he knelt very much as he used to before Snoke, down on one knee and head bowed. He centred his own thoughts and then took one of his mother's hands. Her skin was dry, the nails elegantly buffed and trimmed. She always looked immaculate in hair and dress. Not like his father, who had always appeared as if he'd just fallen out of bed. Ben had inherited his mother's regal countenance and his father's untidy hair. He briefly touched the scab he found on the underside of her hand. A defensive wound. Not looking away from her, he asked Poe and Finn, "Have they said what's wrong with her?"

"She got hit in the head. Pressure built up. The pod she was in was damaged—she's got embedded shrapnel. We think she spent several hours in low oxygen, but she’s strong. She’s survived worse.”

Ben again nodded his head. He knew. He set aside the other occupants of the room and concentrated on his mother.

The surface of her mind was blank, only lower, under a buzzing, did he begin to find traces of her personality...A memory of a laugh. Phrases she cherished that drifted around like ghosts. _His face as a boy_. He had done this so many times to others, born it personally until he didn't even consider it a violation. But Rey had changed all that. Her turning the tables on him, her fear and revulsion marked it as the violation that it was. He followed the links and passes of Leia's mind with a growing feeling of unease until he realised she was letting him in.

He called to Leia softly, at first by name, then as her son.

“Leia? Mother? It’s Ben. Where are you?”

She was low, down deep. He shuddered, cognizant of his presence in the medical bay, then let his mind go, descending through the layers, falling deeper, pulled by the tide of her will. The shields he usually found in her mind felt like drapes he could brush past, her presence off down a corridor that seemed to get longer, stretching out the closer he came.

“Please,” he called, mind voice cracking from disuse.

From her, he felt a pause and then a flutter in the sea of her awareness in response.

“Ben?” she replied from far off. She sounded scared.

To hear his mother's fear caused in him the unwilling desire to run. Mostly, because he knew she had reason to fear him.

Ben's shut eyes flinched, but he followed her further into the depths, and then felt her desire to merge. A hand reached out to him and the image forged between the real hand he held and the illusory one in her mind.

She took him and carried him past the damaged parts of her brain to a place where she'd created a shelter. From the outside, visually, it looked like a treetop hut in a thick forest, but when he pulled back the rags to enter, he walked into the cockpit of the  _Falcon_. In the main pilot seat sat Han Solo. Behind him, Luke Skywalker. His mother took the co-pilot's seat. All of them looked as he could vaguely still picture them from his youth.

"Hey, kiddo!" his father called to him. His voice was so bright, it hurt to hear it. Ben was bludgeoned and humiliated by the remorse which rose in him. He was on the cusp of fleeing when his mother reached once more for him, the sensation of their hands touching drew him closer so that he stood between the two front seats.

"Sweetheart," she whispered. She looked so pleased to see him. Her warmth cloaked him.

His uncle cemented Ben's feet in place when he put a gentle hand on Ben's shoulder. “When did you get so big?” Luke asked.

Ben towered over them physically but he felt dwarfed by the power of the devotion they showed towards one another in how they interacted. Their connection was plain. He could see it in the happy small smile the twins shared. In his father’s wink back in the glass.

This was just one of a library of things he had ruined. Considering the far-reaching impact of his actions, the utter misery he'd caused to millions, it seemed such a small thing; the destruction of the love between these three people. In this moment, their dedication and loyalty to one another was so clear, palpable, that his knowledge of how Han and Luke had died separated from it, bowled him over. Not for the first time in his life he wished he could die on the spot save confronting what his lust for control had done. But Rey had been emphatic when he'd surrendered: he had to live with his past—that was his punishment.

He spoke the unspeakable then, "I'm sorry.” The tears came hot and bitter to his eyes.

"Hey! Hey? What's this for?" his father asked. "Come on. It'll all feel better in the morning. These things always do. Come on, wanna help your old Dad pilot?"

Paternal devotion came at him from all sides when Leia said, "Humour him, sweet. He's been dying to bust out that Kessle Run story."

"What amazes me, Ben, is how that twelve edges closer to eleven parsecs every time," his uncle Luke added and then ruffled Ben's hair. 

It felt the wrong environment for the conversation, but Ben couldn't find it in him to picture it happening anywhere else. He smiled without wanting to and wiped the tears from his face.

He forced his mind back to why he was here, letting slide the enchantment of their pure affection.

"Mother, Mom. I need your help," he told her, tone serious.

"Always, my love."

"I'm here about Rey. Do you remember who Rey is?"

Leia smiled brightly and nodded. "You can't help but admire that girl."

He swallowed. "No, you can't. Mom, can you tell me what happened? She was taken, do you remem—"

An alarm sounded, interrupting his questions.

"Ben, I need you!" Han demanded urgently. Leia edged past him and Ben slid into the co-pilot's seat without forethought. Ben flipped back shield controls and looked up out the screen to see that they were no longer observing a starscape, but he was seeing Rey through a porthole. Her face was filled with fear. 

"Rey!" screamed his mother's older, faded voice through the speakers. 

"It's jammed! Leia, go!"

"I won't leave—"

"You have to! You know what they want...I have time. You don't!"

Leia's guilt and sense of purpose washed over Ben. He/she/Rey together understood if Leia didn't get free, both of them were dead.

"Don't give them any excuse to hurt you! We'll find you."

Sparks flew then and fire and proximity claxons blared. Through the glass, Rey twisted towards where banging sounded from. The ship was being breached. Leia knew it was time,  _I love you_ , she sent. Rey didn't turn around.  _You too_ , she sent back.

Leia limped towards the evac pods, got in one, and shaking, keyed in the controls to jettison it. Debris from the ship exploding hit and the images on the screen went dark. The last thing Ben saw was a ship swell then disappear into light speed. He recognised it. 

When he blinked, he was alone in a shrouded lonely place. The image of the  _Falcon_  had faded.

He pulled back through the passageways of his mother's mind as gently as he could. He felt some of her follow. They opened their eyes together.

Over his shoulder, he heard Poe cry out for her. 

"You have to save her," she whispered.

Ben crumpled, emotions running riot. “I will do everything in my power. I promise.” 

"Was it really only a dream?" Leia finished. Her eyes rolled back and she slumped.

"Mom?" he whispered. He felt her fading. “Mom!” he said louder.

He was jerked free from her by Poe and a doctor. Several lights on the readouts had changed to red.

"Only a dream—" And like a flash of lightning illuminating the night, he understood.

He stumbled backwards away from the bed, the new knowledge he had overshadowing any concern he might have otherwise had to the sudden number of weapons ready to fire on him.

His jaw worked and then he found Poe who had turned from his mother's supine form. The doctor was mouthing something but Ben could only hear the sound of the heartbeat monitor on his mother and his own pulse drumming. Poe stared at him with microscopic intensity.

"So now you know."

"Why not tell me?"

"Tell you what? Say it."

Ben found that he had difficulty in shaping the words in his head let alone his mouth. The air felt lacking in oxygen. "That Rey's children—are mine."


	2. Two years ago...Part I

_"This is freighter Stellar Cruiser calling for the ship bearing mark zero-three-four-one, confirm comms?"_

_"Stellar Cruiser, contact. Confirm ident codes."_

_"Ident codes confirmed.”_

_"Stellar Cruiser, this is Commander Dameron. To whom am I speaking?"_

_"Captain Orr Maxir, Commander."_

_"Not that it's unpleasant to have a chat, but we agreed two more jump-meets before we opened comms. Safer all round."_

_"There's been a change of plan. We've been notified of a visit to not only our main shipping yard but also subsidiary sites in three days."_

A pause.  _"Sites?"_

_"Since the very recent complications with your...business, other clients seek to ensure that all companies who produce weapons-grade starships and the parts for such are visited. Ambassadors are being sent to all registered sites and some which were…unregistered."_

_"Surely your corporation is above suspicion?"_

_"Oh, certainly. We work within the remit of all directives, Commander. The fighters we fit together are the best in the galaxy."_

_"Do you still have hidden nests, Captain Maxir?"_

_"Yes, Commander, but the interest complicates matters."_

There sounded a drumming like fingers tapped thoughtfully near the mic.

_"Do you still read, Commander?"_

_"What is it that I can do for you exactly, Captain Maxir?"_

_"It's not what you can do for us, Commander. It's what we can do for you."_

Kylo listened to the rest of the communication, which became coyly disguised trivialities, and then removed the earpiece and looked at the young woman who had reported it to him. Her face was obscured by a silver banded mask; her dress the robes the Knights of Ren still wore—a costume he had dispensed with along with other disguises and delusions. "Who else caught this transmission besides, Hux?" Kylo asked her.

“General Hux only. However, I determined he notified the other commanding admirals and generals of it within an hour.”

“This Maxir, from the transmission, which company does he work for?”

“Employee records show the Yirma Arms Corporation.”

Kylo walked away from the knight to his personal communications terminal. The summary data reports from the other fleet officers were light. None of them mentioned the transmission.

“They have moved on the corporation,” he concluded out loud.

“I believe so, my Lord. Like the  _Finalizer_ , _Destroyers_ with Knights of Ren aboard are still in position, but my brothers and sisters have felt a closing off of information from secondary command.”

Snoke, ever suspicious, had built ways to spy on his military. With misplaced trust, he had also handed over this information to Kylo. Without hesitation, Kylo now used the codes he retained from Snoke to delve deeper into encrypted transmissions between the fleet commanders. What Kylo uncovered made his hands shake. "They decided it was best to move swiftly to secure the corporation full-scale. Hux is confident that the missing information as to where the cargo and meet will happen will also be found.”

The knight with him didn’t comment. Their breath came in and out with an electronic hiss from beneath their mask.

"When did the transmission arrive?" Kylo asked softly.

"The transmission was received twenty standard hours ago, my Lord."

“And in all that time, not one of the generals thought to inform me of this movement of our ships."  Kylo's gloved hands clenched. "A quarter of the fleet.” 

“No, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo’s face twitched but he kept his swearing internal. Masks were useful things. At that moment, he could have used the barrier the knight wore to hide his own involuntary inflections. Kylo glanced at the woman and then focused again on the comms terminal before him, his turbulent thoughts running ahead.

It had been Kylo’s plan to infiltrate starship construction companies and monitor all transmissions and any changes to scheduled shipments. In the three weeks since Snoke's demise, he had personally worked tirelessly to trace the registration of any known rebel ship which had come into contact with the First Order. He’d also delved into those recorded in the salvaged Imperial archives, expecting to find references as to where those ships had been made through serial numbers. He’d further had the knights run checks on historic rebel bases and shipping yards—Crait being a lesson Kylo had learned well.

The past, no matter how deeply he tried to bury it, had a habit of coming back and biting him in the ass.

Isolated, Kylo now understood his mistake in leaving the running of the fleet to Hux and the others. He hadn’t secured his position as High Command. Given to a moment of clarity, Kylo recognised he’d thrown his attention in keeping with the tradition Snoke had cultivated in him: of working from the shadows. He hadn’t stepped up. Truthful only to a degree, he refused to recognise that he'd hidden away, the ferocity with which he worked distracting him from how his inner self had never been as insecure. In the vacuum left after Snoke, and behind Kylo’s back, Hux had wormed in. Officious, he’d also modified Kylo’s plan—Hux ordering the fleet to warn the various companies in advance to make them sweat and force mistakes. 

The more Kylo thought about the situation, the bitterer at his relegation and his own diplomatic shortcomings he became.

He compelled his body to take measured breaths, and calmer, pondered the wider implications. The Yirma Arms Corporation was a prime candidate for the rebels to seek ships from. It was a medium-sized corporation that at its core didn’t make ships, but fitted them together from pieces crafted by smaller sister companies and shadow subsidiaries. Its complex structure would help it to hide shipment discrepancies and sudden money transfers. It was on the fringe of the main systems too, with a myriad of astro-harbors. If there was a business still freely trading, YAC was certainly top of the list. Aggravatingly, they were also one of the First Order's best suppliers. Their ships were reliable, the corporation always on target and timely in their promises. For such a supposedly dependable contractor to turn Resistance collaborator made the First Order’s grasp on the galaxy look feeble.

The knight beside him hung on. Kylo considered his position and then dismissed them with a nod. Then added, “Go to Hux—secretly. When there,” Kylo handed her a data-stick, “Open up a link using these codes. I'll send my orders directly to you.”

***

A day later, a distance away, Kylo waited for events to play out. He’d informed Captain Peavey he was leaving him in charge of the  _Finalizer_  without giving a reason. The man saw sense enough not to ask. Kylo stationed his command shuttle in a geosynchronous orbit around a dead moon, one a swift lightspeed jump away from the location he’d uncovered where Hux planned to attack and seize the rebels.

“My Lord, the  _Millennium Falcon_  has entered orbit around Ilena and is readying to dock at the station,” the ghostly figure of his knight reported from the comms terminal. Kylo looked up sharply. He’d been on edge, waiting. On the panel next to him, he checked the readout from the scanners and watched the ship trajectory of the old battered freighter enter into the path for the landing lane.

Kylo stood and clasped his hands together behind his back. “Are there any other ships reporting in?”

“No, my Lord—just the single freighter.”

Kylo's eyebrows met. The fact that the  _Falcon_  had come alone into Hux's trap felt too good to be true. After his loss of control on Crait he was wary to respond to the flare of pure unfocused rage that the ship caused within him. One, he was unwilling to admit, kindled from the purest burst of sheer vulnerability.

He sighed. Kylo could imagine the possible conversations taking place on board the freighter now. Maybe Organa gave the crew some saccharine oration about hope. The pilot, Dameron, might scratch his slovenly stubble with his thumb, and make a quip in response. The wookiee would yowl a battlecry.  _And Rey…_

Eyes shut Kylo shook his head a little, pushing thoughts of her away from him.

He refocused. Untethered from Snoke’s controlling influence, he was sceptical of every stroke of good fortune, which is why he’d left the generals to work the strategy they had stolen from under him and then overbaked. If the plan worked, Kylo intended to swoop in and claim victory. If the plan failed, then he could equally leap in and take command, fixing that his exclusion had caused it to nose dive. It wasn’t a win-win, as much as damage limitation. There was another reason for his distance—it was necessary. His presence would immediately be felt by Rey or Leia should they actually be there, alerting them to the trap. The knight he’d sent was the only one in the area, disguised as a junior grade lieutenant. Sith were adept at hiding in plain sight: until exposed that was. The knight had rigged Snoke’s codes into the mainframe, and secluded, Kylo saw events play out in real time.

He scanned the mission mandate. Small squadrons of TIE fighters were hidden in the debris field of the target ranges where the corporation tested the newly produced ships. The First Order armada was completed by the two _Destroyers_ set to jump in as soon as the rebel ship, or ships, were secured.

On paper, the plan made sense: the First Order had forced the YAC to move and make contact with the rebels. The rebels had responded. Following this, squadrons of Stormtroopers had landed and convinced the YAC board of directors that all profits from the deal and past indiscretions would be forgiven for compliance. They pleaded loyalty, and not one of them had cracked under torture, but concealed records showed that Ilena station was where the rebels planned to descend, transfer the money, and then take a first shipment of light fighters.

Yes, on paper, it seemed faultless. The rebels were depleted and an offer of ships under the asking price was a boon. How could they resist? The odds only seemed to go the way of the First Order. In the mists of anticipating victory, however, Han Solo's voice rose up from the depths of Kylo's mind to bounce around:  _don't listen to odds, good or bad_ ,  _son_ , he'd once told a boy called Ben Solo.

Kylo willed any sentiment down.

The rebels were desperate, their fleet reduced to a-piece-of-junk freighter and whatever they had salvaged from their dwindling allies. It wasn’t a fleet fit to enter combat—it was barely fit to run and hide. The longer the rebels waited, the fewer places would still be free to supply them with command ships, bombers, and fighters to begin to make a real stand. They were down but Kylo was under no illusion that they were out. Pressing them would finish this and he _needed_ it to be finished. Dameron and whoever else travelled with him were all about to walk into a trap.

"My Lord, the freighter has docked,” the knight’s voice sounded, interrupting Kylo's musing. “The squadrons are ready to descend. _Destroyers_ hyperdrives charged to jump."

"And they are still planning to take prisoners, rather than destroy the station?" Kylo asked in a voice devoid of inflection. He did his best to maintain his heartbeat in the seconds that followed his question.

"Yes, Supreme Leader. Hux wants a series of publicised trials and executions."

That was stupidity right there: all it would do is turn them into martyrs. Kylo knew it would be better if the rebels were forgotten, their memory silenced. He closed his eyes and tried to expunge the turmoil inside of him through meditation rather than violence. There was sudden appeal in taking his lightsabre and brutalising some innocent bit of _Upsilon_ to release his pent-up tension. The meditation didn’t help. He paced, saving his ship from the savage impulses that roiled inside him, and then he came up behind the pilot’s chair. He dug his fingers into the headrest deeply.

"Supreme Leader!” the knight’s voice interjected once more—it had taken on a note of urgency. “The _Destroyers_ have arrived but the Stormtroopers aboard the station report that the ship is empty."

"It's an old trick—they are probably in one of the caches," Kylo replied but he felt the knight's urgency further agitate his own unsettled mood.

"They're sending in a tracker droid."

Kylo centred himself, visualising the old freighter. He walked under the nose, up the ramp, into the cargo bay—

"Leader, there are no life signs—the ship has been remotely piloted."

Kylo's eyes widened. He suddenly just knew. He leapt towards the terminal. "Patch me through to Hux! Now!”

" _The ship isn't the Millennium Falcon!_ _The signature codes have been swapped out_ ," the knight continued to report. The readouts that Kylo was being sent went screwy as the connection to the knight cut off before flaring back in with increased static. "The station is reporting a massive explosion—several. Three freighters have just jumped in near the _Destroyers_ —they are within the range of the _Destroyers_ ' shields." Another boom cut the connection out. It came back weakly, the knight's voice in the middle of a sentence: "Rigged—" The transmission then severed completely.

"Fuck!" Kylo shouted. Abandoning subterfuge, he disengaged the low signature orbital engines and warmed up the hyperdrive. He'd just known it was all too good to be true.

***

Kylo’s ship jumped into the wreckage. Quickly he dodged around charred ship parts, avoiding a collision. Finding clear space, he focused his scanners to discover one _Destroyer_ was descending, pulled by gravity towards the watery planet below. The other had a huge hole in its flank. There were many mini floating fires where bits of wreckage and TIE fighters had been caught up in whatever had gone down in the few minutes his jump here had taken. The fight, such as it was, had been fast and devastating. Kylo read it from the battlefield without needing to be told: the rebels had sent dummy ships in, set to detonate. As a way to strike back, Kylo had to hand it to them. They had hit the First Order hard—hoisting them on their own petard.

He opened a communication to the disabled but still orbiting _Destroyer_ —Hux's—Kylo identified, and waited for a response to his hail.

The command codes came back for him to land.

***

Kylo secured docking procedures before he galvanized himself, pulling around him an intimidating detachment. The ramp of his ship opened and he was pleased to find that Hux had seen sense enough to come and greet him. Kylo swung a glance at the man: blood ran from a large graze on his forehead but he was otherwise whole. Cowed by failure, Hux went down on one knee. Kylo took a steadying breath and marched down the steps to level with him. He loomed over Hux without speaking at first. Kylo eventually asked, “You were tricked, General. A double bluff.” Kylo decided that the amount of subservience the man showed in the next few seconds would determine his fate.

Hux didn’t prevaricate, “Yes, Supreme Leader.” He kept his head down low. Kylo witnessed the pronounced sweat drip down the General's neck as he postured, preparing for Kylo's punishment.

Kylo moved to scrutinise the other individuals and the overall condition of this hanger on the ship. Stormtroopers extinguished fires as maintenance droids frantically rolled here and there, fixing blown circuits and panels. The pressganged general staff darted to damaged sections with datapads. Only the droids worked indifferent to his presence. The humans hurried when his eyes lit on them; their fear spiking.

A silent howl echoed through Kylo's mind.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux called.

Kylo blinked and came back to himself. “We need to move from this area as quickly as possible and return to our former positions. I’m unclear yet if it has occurred to the other Generals but drawing us here could also be a cover for where they are really going for those ships.”

Hux coughed but Kylo didn't permit him to rise. Still knelt, the man said, “We have the Board of Directors for the Yirma Arms Corporation here. They claim that they knew nothing of this—”

“I’m aware you have them. I’ll have knights attend them soon. If they are unable to find the truth, then I will. In the meantime, limit the loss of life to the other ship and scramble the remaining fighters. We return to First Order territory directly.”

Kylo brushed past Hux and felt his slump, timed with a burst of relief. Kylo paused. “One more thing, General Hux. Betray me like that again and I know a number of worse fates than being blown apart in a space station.”

Hux swallowed uncertainly and then nodded.

***

Kylo returned to the  _Finalizer_ alone. He sat in his chambers ruminating over events. It was clear now that the rebels had implanted the suspect information into the YAC mainframe. Paranoia came with power, and guilt automatically assumed, but the corporation had legitimately only traded with the First Order. Not only had Hux failed to kill the rebels, he had been lured into a trap where they had lost a _Destroyer_ , severely disabled another, and equally incapacitated those loyal to their cause. Even Kylo's fuck-up on Crait couldn't compare to this.

He replayed the few brief frames of footage transmitted from the station shortly before the rebels had rigged it to detonate. Gallingly, he guessed they had tried to take advantage of his previous behaviour, using the loss of control the  _Falcon_  triggered in him by rigging an almost identical ship and fitting it with bits of the  _Falcon_  to emulate its signature. He deleted the images.

As the hours went on, further reports from elsewhere in the galaxy came in. A shipyard which manufactured light unarmoured transports, but ones easily retrofitted to become larger fighters, had been raided. The rebels had waited until Hux took the bait and then sought what they needed elsewhere. They had also hit a site with impounded, half destroyed, X-Wings; loading the ships onto their new transport freighters.

The rebels had baited them hook, line, and sinker. They had been strong when they appeared weak, and used the might of the First Order against them.  
  
Kylo ran a hand back through his hair then scraped nails against his skull. Below the surface of his skin, he could feel emotions warring: he was angry, he was _impressed_ —there was embarrassment and frustration. He also felt something else; something he’d felt for a number of years but that he’d always been able to smother before with belief, under orders—in Snoke. Identification of the emotion came to him slowly, haltingly, and sorrowfully. He glanced around at the charcoal atmosphere of his room. At the stark lights, the hard surfaces. He felt the temperature as it was, a shade too cool for comfort. He blinked, eyes red-rimmed. The emotion that bloomed in his chest devastated all others: he was lonely.

Without even realising as he did it, he reached for Rey. 

Her soft breath sounded in his ear as warmth burst over his skin. Her smell rose to fill his nose.

He didn’t stand, but gazed up at her silently as he had done on Crait. Her hair was loose; perspiration pearled on her temples and forehead. She was clearly deeply involved in some mission or other, yet she paused to stare at him. He couldn't tear his eyes away from her—there was a power in her he couldn't deny and an intimacy and call in their connection that moved him more than anything he'd ever felt. She'd been at the back of his sleeping and waking thoughts since they had met, but now that she was here, he didn't know what to do or say.

"Poe, take the ship. I need a moment," she said.

Kylo watched her move away and he got to his feet. Mood unidentifiable, he followed the short distance she walked. From the paces she took, he understood that she was aboard the  _Falcon_. He didn't feel his mother nearby—just her. Alone, she turned to face him, the tails of her scarf floated around her like wings. 

He dampened his lips. “Well played,” he croaked, his throat as dry as his mouth. “You executed that plan to perfection today. You completely wrong-footed the First Order generals. Your idea?”

She seemed as affected to see him as he was her. She snatched her gaze away from him and cast it around, before walking in a loop. Her hands motioned as if she shut a door behind her. She came back to him. “The General’s and Poe’s,” she said, her voice low.

“Subdued the enemy without fighting—clever.”

“The Resistance gained back some ground.”

“Are you _not_ Resistance, Rey?” 

A little frown marred her forehead. "You said the Generals—this wasn't your plan of attack?"

"Only as far as to investigate, watch, and patrol the shipping routes."

She took a step towards him and then stilled. Her head turned away from him, “I’m coming,” she said and not to Kylo. She turned back to him, "You've picked your side—can you live with it?" she asked.

"I _am_ the other side."

She shook her head. Facing him, she whispered, "You look ill," before their connection burst.

Kylo stood statuesquely and then wiped the dampness from his cheeks. The loneliness came crashing back like a tidal wave. He contemplated his fist and then crashed it into the wall. The pain banished feeling. 

***

Later, a buzzer announced someone at his chamber door.

“Enter.”

A knight came in. “My Lord, we've had some success.”

Detached Kylo nodded, giving the knight permission to speak further.

“We've uncovered that Maxir from the transmission, the employee record for him was faked. The voice, however, does match a man who worked for the corporation, but one by another name—Tavin Avar.  He's a tester pilot. We believe it to be him who hatched the plan with the rebels and fed the false information into the corporation's mainframe.”

“And where is he now?”

“Gone to ground but we're working every lead, as per your instructions.”

“A tester pilot?” Kylo walked over to his work terminal and loaded up the information taken from the corporation's databanks. The skill at inserting it all so seamlessly had been a delicate one. For it to have been done so rapidly... "I'm suspicious of this man working alone. The skill to import into a sealed databank seems beyond the capabilities of your average jock, wouldn't you think?”

“Likely, my Lord.”

“Then he had help—corporate espionage or a technician inside. I'd push for the latter. These companies don't fear war—it's their market. What they fear is the loss of secrets. They would notice a new face, so an old face.” Kylo stood straight. “I want employee names of those with the skills to possibly do this. Then I want their records pulled—every interaction. I want their family’s names. I want the links between Dameron and YAC found!”

“Will whoever it is, not already be with the rebels?”

Kylo mulled that over. “It's a possibility. But trust is presently a virtue the rebels can't give out too freely.” Kylo nodded a dismissal and the robed figure bowed and left.

***

Hours later, Kylo exited his shuttle and without speaking, made his way to where the prisoner was being held.

The imprisoned man was of medium build, and beneath the bruises and the swelling, passingly handsome. He blinked sweat from his eyes as Kylo entered. Kylo regarded him. “I've no wish to be cruel or to cause you any further needless pain. It's a simple question—how did you or Tavin Avar make contact with the rebels?”

“Why should I tell you if you're going to kill me anyway?”

Kylo inclined his head. “A brought silence lasts until someone offers a higher price. Does your life qualify?”

“I won't tell you anything.”

“Of course you don't have to. I am adept at obtaining information even without your co-operation.”

The man swallowed and Kylo felt his resolution wavering.

“I can't tell you what I don't know.”  The surge in the man's fear made Kylo's insides squirm as did his own footsteps forward. He hadn't done this since Starkiller Base. Slowly, he raised his hand next to the man's face. From by the door, his knights watched him intently—none of them had his skill. He glanced down then at the man's trembling mouth. “You love your family, don't you?"

The man sobbed louder; his heart pounding. “They said they'd be safe!” He winced as Kylo pushed deeper.

“You have a gambling problem. And I see a price on your head. Dameron offered to pay it.”

“Please, don't hurt my family!”

“You sold information on Cantonica, at the casino.” Kylo pulled back and took a breath as he pulled his mind probe inside and settled into his own head. “Dameron made contact with you there. It's a lead.”

Kylo turned to the knights. “Who knows that he was captured?”

“No one yet. Avar must be with the rebels. Pilots are needed. We only found the prisoner from reports that the two used to associate outside of working hours.”

Kylo regarded the technician once more. “Do you need to signal them or will they take it on faith that you got free?”

“I said to them to get my family out as I was going to pay my debts, but it's not the only place I owe money. I...was planning to get lost.”

“Why didn't you?"

The man took a halting breath. “Credits—I had them to spend.”

Kylo considered the man's addiction and his fate. He nodded to a knight to come and take him away. He waited and then decided to be kind. “Your family were evacuated by the rebels. They are not in our hands.”

The man sobbed again and nodded. 

***

The glitteringly restored casinos at Canto Bight led them to smaller gambling dens and underground racing. FN-2187 (AKA Finn), Poe Dameron, and a young woman companion were spotted at one such grubby place. Kylo received the communiqué but events transpired beyond his control before he could give orders or intercede.

***

He entered the room with a blank expression. His knights faced him in a semi-circle. Centrally between them, Rey hung lank, confined to an interrogation chair. She was deeply unconscious. Her lucid mind felt vacant and her subconscious barred to him. Across her temple, a bruise bloomed and dried blood ran down her chin from a cut on her lip.

He came to a standstill and secreted his hands behind his back.

“Her confederates escaped my Lord—I take full responsibility,” announced the senior of the knights. “We assumed that they would be secure in the lock-up here but an unknown person or persons rescued them.”

“An unknown?”

“The security footage was purposefully corrupted.”

“Her friends care for her. I find it hard to believe that they would leave without her.”

“They were all disabled by the same airborne anaesthesia. I believe that like the Force user, they would still have been unconscious when rescued. We only thought it cardinal to maintain vigilance over the girl until you arrived.”

Kylo used every bit of his self-control to master his face and emotions. He respired carefully, using a touch of the Force to moderate his pulse.

“My Lord, justice can now be had for our former master— _revenge._ With such, you can rightfully take his place,” said a short knight—his voice droning with the breathing apparatus attached to his helmet. "You can end the corruption and bring order to the galaxy."

At hearing his own words paraphrased back, Kylo eased his weight from foot-to-foot.

“There's something further. We impounded her light transport ship. Inside we found these and a broken lightsabre. She was only armed with a blaster when we took her,” offered yet another cloaked figure.

A previously silent knight edged forward. On a tray he held the lightsabre and various volumes of different thickness; their leather bindings heavily embossed. The leaves of vellum within were warped and yellowed around the edges from age. Despite himself, Kylo reached over and collected one. He took care to support the spine with his palm as he opened it. Inside, the script was ancient. The ink on the leaves faded, and in places, rubbed away. He paged through the text, identifying a word or symbol here and there. He knew to read it all would require hours of study, cross-referenced with other dictionaries and scripts. Even unable to read the text, he understood instantly what the volumes were. He snapped the one he held closed; the volume sent out dust motes, its thickness engulfed by the large span of his gloved fingers. The sight of the volumes and lightsabre provoked his temper. “Burn it.” He turned his mind to Rey. “Destroy them and leave us.”

He placed the volume back and took the lightsabre as the knights filed out around him. Alone with her, he released the breath he hadn't realised he’d been holding. He unclipped his cloak and draped it over a wing of the interrogation chair. He then put the broken lightsabre in her empty belt-purse. Finally, he stepped back, observing her face. The bruise on her temple darkened by the moment. It must have happened when she'd fallen; dropped by whatever concoction the knights had drugged her with. He stilled the hand that itched to touch that mar, and unable to consider being anywhere else until she awakened, he retreated a few steps and settled down onto one knee to wait for her to come round.

Time didn't appear to flow in the normal sense as he knelt there. It felt like a flat thing, compacted, from the moment he bent to her first change of breath. Unlike before, her return to awareness wasn't the immediate transition as it had been when he'd put her to sleep on Takodana. It was gradual. He felt her push through the layers of her mind, fighting past the remnants of the tranquilizer in her system. She murmured, her head shifting weakly on her neck before she groaned and opened her eyes. She gazed at him blindly at first and then her focus sharpened. She drew her spine straight, building walls, ready to face him.

Kylo slowly rose to his full height. Equally measured, and careful not to touch her, he moved towards her and released the restraints at her feet and hands. He then withdrew.

Fixed on him she eased free of the chair and stood. The top of her head came to his chin. With marked defiance, she licked her palm and wiped the blood from her mouth. Lifting her jaw, she said. “I won’t tell you where the Resistance are. Neither will Poe or Finn.” 

Kylo looked off behind her and then refound her face. He didn't reply.

“What now? Torture? You try to read my mind again?” Her voice shook but that was the only outward sign of her apprehension.

His lashes fluttered, veiling his pupils as he cleared the thickness that had settled in his throat. “Your friends were freed. I imagine their next move will be to try and find you.” She inspired that kind of devotion, he knew. “Perhaps I should play them at their own game and lure them with a transmission. Send them to a prison to find you and then never let them out.”

“They're not that foolish.”

The sound of amusement he let off down his nose was unplanned. His sober manner quickly returned. “I could let it be known that you didn’t survive but the truth will out—it always does. My mother will sense it. Or if not, Luke will tell her if he's strong enough.”

Water glistened in her eyes. She blinked it back and sniffed. “He’s dead.”

“I know.” He tilted his head, mesmerized by the shift of emotion across her face. “There’s still so much that you don’t though.” He watched her perplexed brows level as her indignation spiked.

“I can manage on my own.”

“You mean by deciphering those mangled texts?” His stare trailed behind her again to where he knew the rest of the knights waited. “The Knights of Ren found them. I’ve asked them to destroy them.”

“Why?” Puzzlement caused her to frown again.

He paused probing the question, but her patience ran out before he’d formulated a proper response.

“Why destroy them? Aren’t you curious as to what they say?”

“No. No, I’m not.” He looked to find her staring at him avidly. “There’ll be nothing in them that isn’t esoteric sermon and mysticism. _“Be a tree that bends with the wind; a river that flows around rocks…'_ ” That’s the Jedi way—passivity. The Jedi way, but not my way.” He closed the gap between them a little. “ _And not your way_.”

He watched her eyes narrow.

“We’ve seen into each other. You have feelings Rey, strong ones. Look what inaction did for you. It left you waiting on Jakku _for nothing!_ ” he said, suddenly sharp. And then softer, “All those years alone.” He gestured wide with one hand. “Look at what you’ve achieved since you made a choice not to merely tread water but swim. Your fire, your loyalty, and love—everything that you do is guided by your emotion. Every battle you have won, you won it with a passion to who you are, not in piety to some dead religion. For those very things alone, you work against the Jedi code.” Kylo swallowed. His timbre deepened. “You don’t need those texts. Passion drives your instinct.” Directly before her, he raised a hand to her cheek but stopped shy of touching her. “You can be anything you want, Rey. Do anything. Effect change.”

Rey twitched but she didn't move away from him. “I won’t join you,” she swore.

He dropped his hand. “Yes,” he said huskily. He pulled back from her and took several paces away, his thoughts ticking over with the problem the knights had presented him with— _what to do with her?_ The problem had plagued him since the knights had reported her capture. The solution he’d come to on his way here was imperfect—he knew that—and immoral he understood further. But he couldn’t kill her, not like this. And he couldn’t just let her go— _could he?_

Indecisive he circled her, Rey's attention following him. He knew his previous orders had been completed. The message from the droid-only construction crew had come in before he had landed. Observed by her, he put his hands on the wall to steady himself. His head felt like it was floating high as in opposition his body felt forced down by an invisible fierce pressure. He let his head drop a moment until vertigo passed. Coming to some resolution, he returned to her and removed his one glove. He proffered his naked hand. “Last time we touched, we saw something of each other. It guided us both.”

He witnessed the internal conflict that stormed within her—it played out in her movements. She rubbed fingertips into her palm and then slowly raised her one hand to meet his. The moment her cool skin touched his heated flesh vicious images filled his mind, they moved in quick succession:  _Rey losing a fight as gloved hands slammed her down. Rey curled up defenceless on her side._ _Rey, stomach round in pregnancy, blood on her thighs, screaming in pain—on and on—as a black shape stood over her..._ The images were acute, extra real, and similarly desperate.

Kylo threw his body back, hair stuck to his suddenly sweat-soaked forehead. His guts twisted up as bile rose in his throat. He thought about the rooms he'd had built aboard the  _Finalizer:_  the books, the bed, the thick walls—the pleasant cage he was committing her to. This was what it would lead to. He struggled for air.

“Ben?” Rey asked, studying him. Whatever she'd seen, it had not been images of blood and violence— _he hoped_. For the first time since they had connected in Snoke's throne room, her regard wasn't doused in dislike.

He gathered himself, postponing the disgust and distress. “There's a limit to my power here. Don't fight me,” he said. And then telepathically, " _I'm not asking for your trust. Just your patience."_

Some of the wariness returned to her face and stance. Her interest peaked before she closed it down.

Kylo tidied his hair and wiped his forehead with his bare hand. He collected his cloak and fastened it around his neck like armour. Gloved hand to her bicep, he steered Rey around. As they walked, after-effects of the drugs made her footsteps wobble. Rey was smart enough to understand that the possibility of escape here and now was slim, and without conflict, she leaned into his grip.

At his command ship, the Knights of Ren waited. Kylo felt them reach out collectively, their minds brushing over Rey's. She was a warped spoke in the wheel. They wanted her to bow and to break. Their desire mirrored the visions. Kylo pulled her a little closer to him as they flanked Rey and his entry into the _Upsilon_ in silence. Aboard ship, Kylo secured Rey in restraints to a bolted down seat—she didn’t resist—and then he turned to the knights.

“I'll take her back alone. Continue the investigation here—find what happened with the escaped rebels. Follow when complete.”

The knights nodded at his orders and disembarked. Kylo watched them leave with a heavy heart. He then steered the ship into the air. Rey and he didn’t speak to each other as the _Upsilon_ climbed. He felt her simmering agitation press up against his skull but her actual thoughts she held on tight to like a weapon.

Half a mile up, his indecisiveness passed. He glanced at the weaponry at the same time as he warmed up the hyperdrive. Without warning, he vaulted the ship around and engaged the _Upsilon’s_ shields. He flicked open the fire button to the plasma cannons. There were civilians down there as well as the Knights of Ren. Regret flared through him. They would have him kill her... or worse, make her like them. He wondered if she would forgive him—would he ever himself? But it was her life, her spirit, for theirs; and in that, there was no argument his conscience could make to alter his intent, not now.

Behind him, he heard her gasp—she understood what he planned to do.

He fired a volley into the communications tower to shut down transmissions and destroy records—yellow flared distantly and through the ship’s hull they heard the blasts. A slight shudder stole over him as he swiftly piloted them back on course and ascended. Hyperdrive ready, he ignited it and darkness promptly shifted into light. For a few moments, he couldn't move. He felt wide awake and poised, but he simply stared at the lines the stars became as they passed.

The impasse between them stretched.

Tentatively he felt her awareness reach out to him.  

Kylo twisted around and walked over. He saw her stiffen but not resist as he removed her restraints once more.

She rubbed her wrists and rose. “Why did you do that? Why now?”

 _It takes seeing the loss of something to recognise what it actually means to you…And I'm weak._  He thought these things but he didn’t tell her. To busy himself, he strode over to the controls and clawed at the air. Lodged deep in the ship, he crushed the tracker using the Force. Then he stilled.

“Ben?” Rey called.

When he turned around at last, she was stationary; one hand extended to him. 

"You are no longer bound by Snoke's control. By revenge. Free yourself from your fear. It's the only thing that has ever limited you. He used it to control you. You have to believe—know—that you are more than it." Her hushed voice left an odd silence between them. He quieted a shiver. She waited gravely, her hand still out. Bracing himself, he reached forward and placed his inside it. No visions came this time, only a sense of peace.

"What do you want, Ben?" she asked.

Coming from the darkest part of his soul, his reply tore out of him. “I want to be free of what I am becoming. Of what I am. I want to be free— _of me_.”

“Then let me help you,” she said. Her fingers tightened around his palm and she led him to the pilot’s chair.


	3. Two years ago…Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Kylo trying to explain away being a murderer.

At the controls, Rey let go of Kylo's fingers. She read the flight coordinates. The course was set to nowhere specific—just away. He began to ask her for a destination but stopped. Her attention had fallen to her belt purse, where belatedly he assumed, she noticed the additional weight of the lightsabre he’d returned to her. She didn’t open the drawstring at the top—the shape outlined in the cloth made it obvious what it contained. She looked up at him, head tilted questioningly.

“It came to you. It’s yours,” he said.

Rey pressed the purse’s weight to her thigh and then released it. “I tried to fix it, but the crystal’s severed along with everything else. Things have been so mad, I haven’t had a moment to look to it beyond that,” she replied, surprisingly candid.

Kylo twitched and then deciding nodded. He paced away from her, off to where he’d stored the supplies he’d brought with him. As the cell he’d ordered for Rey was built aboard the  _Finalizer_ , he’d been in two minds, he understood now, about what he was going to do. The pack he pulled free contained clothing, food, and enough credits to get lost (for a time at least) within the various free systems. What he was still uncertain about was if he’d intended the pack to be for her, or him. Inside, he uncovered a cloth roll. It was a small secret he’d hidden all his years with Snoke, locked away in the deepest part of his mind to keep it safe. He undid the ties that held the roll together. The hilt he uncovered was simply fashioned, made from a silverish metal. He’d built it with Skywalker a lifetime ago. As he hefted the weapon in his palm, recollections of that time rose up: Luke's proud hand dropping to his shoulder; the joy that suffused the boy he'd been when the lightsabre finally worked—the power of the blade echoing the awakening he felt inside of him. Kylo breathed heavily and turned around to find Rey had followed. She watched him with those over bright eyes; her stance lightly positioned, unengaged but ready to fight if needs be. Her look dropped from his face to the lightsabre he held where she examined the hilt; her face cast in blue light as he fired it up.

“As I understand, the lightsabre you have once belonged to Luke. But before him, it belonged to Anakin Skywalker—his father, my grandfather.”

“It was Vader’s?” A look of disgust briefly contorted her expression.

“No. It belonged to the man he was before he assumed that guise and became Darth Vader.” A struggle burned within Kylo. “This was the weapon crafted by Ben Solo before I killed him.” He brought the blade of light up level to his face, gaze lost in memory and its menacing beauty before he fixed beyond it, back to Rey. “I want you to have it. You and…” he shook his head. “You and Han Solo both tried to reach that boy.” He switched the blade off and spun it in the air, catching the serious end. “Vader’s is a relic. Take this.”

She bridged the gap between them hesitantly. When her fingers closed around the hilt, Kylo let go. Her arm dropped to her side, holding it. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He watched her test its weight; she twisted her wrist in an elegant figure-eight before she ensnared him with a probing look. With her free hand, she reached across to the crossguard of the weapon fastened to his sash and tapped it. “Just as I think I get a handle on you, you surprise me. It's like you’re not just one person, but two, trapped in the same body,” she observed. 

He worked hard to keep from reacting. She had an uncanny ability to cut a way in and tunnel under his skin. He felt like a raw nerve around her. One he needed to numb. Voice low, he told her, “Don't mistake me for a good man, Rey.”

Her thumbnail rested near the trigger on the lightsabre he'd given her. Rey noticed. Prudently she attached the weapon to her belt, out of the way.

Without looking at him, she said, “You confuse me. You're not without compassion. You feel conflicted about the things you do...and yet, you still spill innocent blood.”

She didn’t need the lightsabre—with words alone, she could tear him apart. Kylo breathless, sensed old anxieties emerge to haunt him. Anxieties personified through the faces of the people he’d crushed for his greater purpose. He set to repressing them, forcing them back, and sealing them behind a wall of wrath. “There's power in the dark that isn't in the light," he informed her, face crowding hers, "And I'm a part of a bloodline that exposed the venality lurking beneath the crust of the galaxy. My methods are questionable, but I believed in my cause. Democracy doesn't work. It breeds resentment at the same time as it permits corruption to flourish. Nothing is gained by being universally likable. I saw this when I lived with my moth—with Leia Organa. Daily, she let things slide so she could gain an advantage elsewhere. Politics is a game I grew tired of when I knew I could force change with the power I had **.”** Kylo had held to that notion for the longest time, naturalising his behaviour to fit. 

He drew a deep breath now and recoiled from trying to intimidate Rey. She consistently made him face things he'd sooner forget. The fact that she insisted he could choose his fate seemed cruel when he knew he would always seek to exert control. His mind flicked back to the vision of her being forced down, of her being conquered. He tamped down his responses, the worst of which terrified him—how the darkness in him relished at the thought of her beholden and only to him. He was disgusted at the images, and more so at how they called to that possessive streak in him that would have her kneel. Would have her open her mind to him and stand at his side. He recalled the image of her carrying a child…His knuckles turned white where he clenched his hands to banished further errant thoughts. “I am responsible for my every act, Rey,” he cautioned her aggressively. “Every. Single. One.”

For all his fury, she remained calm before him, stalwart. “I will never lose sight of what you are,” she assured him quietly.

Kylo’s teeth bashed together and chagrined he stalked off before a ghostly pain from the scar in his side flared up. He thumped and then pressed a hand to where the wookiee had shot him; his diaphragm constricted. Contrary, he pressed a thumb into the dense tissue, and harder into his ribs until he half saw stars— _pain to banish pain._  Rey took a step forward to stop him, but he waved her down. When he finally spoke, his voice was harsh. “Suffering arises when the world around you feels wrong…and when violence seems the only means of change.” Silently in his mind, he added:  _And I am a catalyst for suffering._ He broke away from her. The pain in his side burned.

“You told me before I can do anything, effect change," she replied. In his head, he heard her follow that with:  _But the only thing you can really change is you._  He jumped to hear her voice this way. She'd read his thought and replied. He swore and put as much mental force into keeping her out as he had with Snoke.

“Stop that,” she said. “Don't shut yourself off. However complicated your past, I believe what you said, that you want to be free. More, when we touched, I saw you smile. You were content— _happy_.”

He laughed cynically. His mind cast back over what he saw. “I’ll never be happy Rey. I don'thave it in me. I don't deserve it—I’ll always want more than I can have.” His reply sounded more fragile than he’d intended. He ran a hand through his hair and set to put some space between them. He dodged around her, heading to the cockpit. 

“What did you see that made you come with me?” she asked abruptly.

He made his feet move quicker. “It doesn’t matter. We'll be exiting hyperspace soon. I need to inspect—"

She caught his arm. “If I’m to trust that this is not some plot to find the others, then you will be completely honest with me,” she said, voice commanding. He tried to pull away but she held on tightly.

“I betrayed my Master for you. Now I’m here."

"You betrayed a creature who had abused you since you were a boy. And now, when you have the power to dictate. When you have all that you ever wanted—"

"Do I? Have what I want?” Kylo searched her face and then wet his lower lip. “The generals jockey for position. Hux sees me as an obstacle. They excluded me from their move against the rebels.” He angled his chin. “Perhaps if I had been included, maybe I would have guided them past the ruse. And maybe I would have blown you all to the furthest reaches of the cosmos—just as I tried to on Crait… Don’t trust me.” He freed his arm from her and needing air, marched off. She pursued him.

“I’ve never known you lack transparency before. You're hiding something. You decided within a moment to come with me. You fired on your own people seconds after that—I want to understand why!”

He swung back to her. They were arguing and getting nowhere. “I said I wanted to be free. You said you believed me. Isn’t that enough?” He stretched his body up, seeking distance in height which he couldn’t in proximity. The corridor was too small for the both of them and certainly for this conversation. 

When she didn't reply immediately, he twisted away, walk clipped. In the cockpit he sank into the pilot's chair and before she could derail him again, he checked the status of the ship. Within moments, she had followed. She came to rest beside him, back to the glass, rear on the edge of the controls. Her hands clasped around the edge of it. Kylo tried to not notice the curve of her hips and breasts the position enhanced. He directed his attention at the controls. With the power of an immaculately maintained machine, the ship exited hyperspace with only a small judder and he set it to drift as he scanned for threats. When he was confident that the area around them was clear, he asked her, “So, where do you want to go? I can leave you on any planet and with enough money to do anything you want. You don’t have to return to the rebels—you’re not beholden to them.”

“So that's it then? We part, and you go…?”

He gave her a flinty look. Would they forever go in circles?

"Why did you fire on them?" she demanded.

"Because I did," he replied, feeling pissed.

"That’s not an answer.” 

He’d already revealed more than he wanted to. “Maybe I fired on them so they’d think you’d got free and stolen the ship,” he offered instead.

“Are they really gullible enough to think I Force-whacked you or something?”

“Or something... I already told them you caused Snoke’s death. Their faith in me must be tested for what occurred in the throne room—a single untrained girl brought down Snoke, all the guards, and me. It was a convenient invention at the time, which perhaps they are beginning to suspect.” He laughed at his own actions scornfully. When he looked up at her, he knew that she wasn't going to let this go without a fight. He gestured out of the screen. "You're not so bright yourself. The whole galaxy at your disposal and yet you get caught in some filthy, scum-strewn racetrack. Why were you there?" 

She huffed. "I suppose it doesn't hurt to say. We needed the credits. Poe and I were racing. I'm good at it, it turns out. Finn was trying to make contact with a coder who might know an arms dealer who might be able to get us supplies."

He leaned back, eyes up but not seeing the ceiling. "I thought you were calling in favours. But I see—you have ships, but not ammunition."

"We have enough to battle you!" 

He smiled fleetingly.

Rey stilled and he caught her worry that this was still a trap. He sensed her fear that she'd betrayed her friends...to him. His knee-jerk response to that moved him more than it should. He gazed at her, voice serious. “How about this for a truth? I fired because they would have me kill you and become like Snoke. They would have me lead them and never question my orders.” He paused, watching her bite her lip. He swallowed and looked away. “I may be single-minded but I’m not stupid, Rey. When you’re stuck in a hole, you don’t keep digging. The generals see me as the last vestiges of a cult they can now dispense of. And the Knights of Ren? Through them, I'll lose what sanity I still have.” He shook his head slightly. “So, you see, there was more to it than a moment’s snap decision.”

She still looked troubled. “Yes, there is more to it. You could have stopped before, in Snoke’s throne room. You know your mother would have taken you back. Instead, you were undone by the power presented to you—servant to it.”

“No. Yes. I…" Cautiously he took her hand and when she didn’t resist, turned it over; a faraway look entering his eyes. “Not entirely. Rey, I was also angry. I admit it. I pleaded with you and became enraged at your rejection. That’s the kind of man I am. That’s the kind of man I am running from.” He squeezed her hand and then let it go. He felt its loss. 

“Look at me."

His gaze snapped to hers.

"You know I had to refuse. We’re not meant to rule. I rejected that side of you.” She held his regard as the walls drew closer.

He wanted to ask if she rejected all of him but he froze the question on his tongue. "We part now because it's not up to you to fix me, Rey." 

“I can’t let you go. Not now. And I can’t bring you back to the Resistance harbouring secrets.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the rising tide of irritation—an emotion easier to deal with than the temptation to drown in her care. “I'm not going back to the fleet,” he stated irascible.

A hand smoothed his cheek, the touch feather light. It was the softest touch he'd felt since... “Tell me,” she pleaded. 

He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, trying to shape how to reply. The connection made, he couldn't bear to break away from it—this was the danger she presented to him and him to her. “Han—my father's—death broke something in me I thought it would fix. No longer mollified by the promise of becoming what Snoke said I could be, Han seemed the ordeal I needed to rip out any hurt, any call to the light. Light is where the pain is Rey, because in it, one cares.” He recalled Snoke's lessons on that. Kylo now concluded something else: All the dark had ever offered him was hunger, dissatisfaction, and despair. He leaned up against the backrest of his chair and crossed his arms. “I felt I must become what he, _we,_ envisioned. I cannibalised what I knew of the past to justify my actions—this was my grandfather’s plan—but in the moment of Han’s...” he stopped. “When I killed my father, I felt pain and rage, but I couldn't be threatened with his life. That's why I said to you to kill the past. Once it’s gone, it's gone. No one can hurt you with it. Like lancing a wound. At the time, I pinned my rage on you and on your Stormtrooper, just as I did everyone on Crait. I already hated anyone who had given me no choice about my life, even my mother. I was going to fire on her—it didn’t matter that it wasn’t me in the end. When the dice disappeared and you shut the door…the nothingness.” He exhaled sharply, looking for a way out of the conversation but finding none. “Thousands, millions, died before me in the blink of an eye from Starkiller, and I still followed. I ordered a village put to death. People die because of my rage Rey. When that loss became personal and happened to people I cared about, it gained roots, had origins. Han was a stepping stone which forced me to confront the path I was on. Even so, for a while I still saw his death as an end. A swift pain. When we touched, however, I realised that I have a true capacity for hurting people, an extended cruelty that goes beyond giving instant death.”

“Death, grief isn’t acute. People don't recover—” Rey interrupted.

He cut over her. “Listen to me. I can't be used if I don’t kneel, and people can’t fear me if I don’t stand. And…” he stopped speaking, staring at the stars. He didn’t see how Rey did, that in the starlight, his face appeared softer. 

Her fingertips were again on his skin. She journeyed across the creases of the flesh and ligaments of his jaw. “I care for you Ben, in spite of all you have done. I care about what happens to you."

“I was destined to be devoured by evil, Rey. Don't spare me your sympathy.” 

"How about my empathy? You keep telling me to forget the past, but I've never seen a man so entrenched in how it shapes him." Her hand dropped from his face. 

He hummed and inhaled. “I made the same mistake as my grandfather—I made a pact with darkness for power. I know that. Where I hope to be different is that he became more enthralled with that power than with his love for his wife. His passion for her remained, but it became corrupted." Kylo gazed into her face, memorising details. "I don’t want my feelings for you to become the same.” 

She leaned back. Her mouth opened a little as she blinked slowly. "Do you love me?"

“Yes.” And with no thought to the motion, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. It lasted a breath, and then he stood. "The ship is yours. You can drop me anywhere and then you're free. I won't appear to you again."

He had to walk away now otherwise he’d lose the strength to do so. He managed two steps before invisible hands arrested him. "I can break that," he warned her.

Rey came to him and reached up to his shoulders. Without preamble, she kissed him back. It wasn't a placid kiss like his. Her teeth hit him. Her hands pressed too tight. She attacked him with pent-up lust and belligerence. The barrier that held him broke and he lifted her and pushed her to a wall, returning her bruising kiss. Nothing about it was romantic. Her little breasts were pinned to his chest. Her lips swept against his hungry and hard, and he roughly pulled her legs up around his waist, retaliating against that kiss. It was like their fight in the snow all over again, all half swings and deflection. His cock throbbed stiffly in response.

Through his tangled thoughts, the vision of her pregnant and screaming dashed over him like ice water.

Kylo reared his head back, panting, to make eye contact. Rey looked wild and confused.

He released her and she dropped down the wall—her landing less than elegant. Unsteady, he turned away from her and from the sight of her throat moving as she swallowed. He tasted blood on his lips—the cut on her mouth had reopened as they kissed. He used his wrist to clean it away. "Don't do that again, Rey." 

Heedless of if her body was chaotic, her voice in replying remained firm. "I'll do anything to make sure you do not return to them."

The laugh that broke free from him was bleak. "And here I thought I was the master manipulator—what do you want from me?"

She showed no mercy when she rounded on him. "I want you to be free of who you are, and I only know one place where you can do that."

He glowered down at her. 

"But do you trust me?" she asked.

***

 

The ocean didn’t look nearly as blue and the island more brown than green from how she had imagined it. It was winter here— _just perfect_ , he thought. He settled his body. No matter how much he'd fought it, they seemed destined to come here together. He stood behind her as she piloted the ship, answering her questions about certain controls and quirks of how the  _Upsilon_  moved. Other than that they remained quiet, talked out. They landed the ship on a rocky inlet, the engines kicking up the surf and sending flurries of small yellow creatures flapping up into the air. Another ship waited for them. He stared out of the cockpit at it, at its dented, rusting, form, before he looked away to the scenery. The glass framed a flat dark sky and cliffs heavy with contrast in the stifled dusk light. The island was more rock than anything else he noted, a carnivorous snaggled tooth jutting up from the mouth of the sea. As inhospitable as the island appeared, Kylo couldn’t deny the impression it made upon him: energy, the Force, aligned here. He closed his eyes and let it sweep over him. When he stirred, he felt calmer. That was until he looked outside again and saw his mother.

His agitation flexed. Rey came to his aid with a grounding palm to his back. 

“It’ll be okay. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“This is going to be…unpleasant.” He put a fist to his lips and bumped it there twice. “I better get it over with."

By the gangway release, they paused—this would be the last moment of solitude between just the two of them. He savoured it and her, how she looked and felt. He sensed that she did the same. If he’d been unconvinced that joining her was right before, then he wasn’t now. As enemies, they would only meet or see each other at the end. Here and now, she stood on tip-toe and kissed him softly similar to how he had her earlier—her lips on his jaw. “This isn’t to punish you, you know. It’s like what you said about the past, about lancing the wound—although, perhaps, it’s ripping the bandage off to check if the wound is healing."

“Closure,” he muttered. He secured to mind the picture of her face and then gestured casually for her to open the door in defiance of how hesitant he felt about moving past this moment. The air outside was noticeably cooler and before him, Rey shivered.

As they exited, she led. He focused on the top of her dark hair. Neither of them was aware of how they looked together. Rey stood slight and light in her clothing, with her finely arched eyebrows lifted like the wings of birds in flight. Behind her, unforgiving and monolithic, he stalked her shadow.

Rey took his hand at the last step and they touched the ground in unison. Nothing happened, yet at the same time Kylo felt a pulse, like an electrical shot, thud through his system. He was unnerved to picture it like a circuit made complete. He knew Rey felt it too when she blinked. Powerless to avoid it, he scanned his mother's face to understand she had felt it too.

He came to a stop when Rey did, a body’s length away from Leia, another foot on that for Dameron, Finn, Chewbacca and a young woman Kylo didn’t recognise.  Dameron and Finn drew level with Leia as Chewbacca touched the bowcaster on his shoulder meaningfully.

Dameron spoke first. “Kylo Ren, you are charged with countless war crimes. You were a member of the First Order, the regime that has enslaved, mass murdered and destroyed planets, including and not exclusive to, the extinction of several planets in the Hosnian system.”

Finn spoke second. “Witnessed by people here, you are also personally charged with ordering the murders of the villagers of Tuanul, including that of Resistance ally Lor San Tekka. You personally tortured and mind-raped Commander Poe Dameron and Force user Rey of Jakku. You also destroyed and caused the deaths of many non-combatants on Takodana.”

The young woman followed third. “The first order attack on the Resistance base on D'Qar led to the death of,” she appeared to swallow past a lump in her throat—there were tears in her eyes, “Many fighters. More were killed in the First Order’s pursuit of the remaining Resistance ships, including and not exclusive to, Admiral Ackbar and Vice Admiral Holdo, as well as other high command and petty officers.”

Chewbacca spoke next. He didn’t bother with the formal language of the humans. His howl also didn’t conceal his pain. “You killed, Han, Ben. How  _could_  you?”

Leia reached a hand back and gripped the wookiee’s arm, steadying him.

Throughout all this, Kylo stood mute; eyes locked with his mother’s.

Leia spoke last, her voice was quiet and without emotion. Her senator’s voice, Kylo recognised. “You are charged with all of the aforementioned crimes, Kylo Ren—formerly known as Ben Solo—how  do you plead?”

There was only one word he could say: “Guilty.” He forced backed tears—sorry was never going to cut it. It wasn't that he didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing him shaken, it was more that he didn't want to be seen as human. He watched his mother stifle her own tears for her own reasons.

Dameron took over when it appeared Leia couldn’t. “A sentence was passed in your absence. The statute is that you should face a sentence of death, but due to your unconditional surrender, this has been reduced to life imprisonment.” The man glanced at Leia, then Rey, and then back to Kylo. “As per request by Rey of Jakku, this shall be fulfilled by your imprisonment here on Ahch-To. Do you have anything to say?”

Kylo broke the stare he held with his mother. “So this is it? No ship? No nothing?”  Kylo snorted but not entirely in contempt. 

Rey, strong and vivid by his side as the others confronted him, walked before him. The call he felt made him look to her and just her. “You'll be alive. And you have to live to come to terms with all that you have done." She put a hand to his chest. His heart thumped faster. "They’ve brought you supplies. Basic tools. A bedroll. Clothes. Also medicines for sickness and accidents. You'll not be alone here—there are people. The Caretakers are anchorites.”

 _Jedi worshippers?_  His mind voice dripped mockery.

 _I don't think they are_ , she replied in kind.  _Not exactly._  She pulled a face.  _They don't like me much._

 _Maybe they have a point,_  he muttered back before turning serious again.  _Is this what you want for me?_

_You'll be safe._

_You said you found no answers here_.

_Maybe that wasn't true. I found you._

Out loud, she said, “You know yourself—you’re always tempted. There’s nothing here to be tempted by.”

An hour later, he sat on the shore and watched the  _Falcon_ ,  _Upsilon_ , and Luke’s ancient X-wing ascend into the night sky. He didn’t think that was true. He wondered if the temptation to reach out to her would ever stop.

Before the ships accelerated into hyperspace, he felt Rey brush up against his mind:  _I won’t stay away forever._

 _No_ , he realised. _It wouldn’t._


	4. Several months ago...

He sensed her arrival and swiftly turned around on his bare heels. Rey was near the fire, staring as if she could see it. There were shadows in her face not caused by the shifting of the flames, and hands on her opposite elbows, she hugged her body tightly like a child. “It's so hard, Ben," she said, without giving any context. It was clear that she had been crying. The blood on her clothes and the oily smoke smeared across her face told him the rest—she'd just come from a battlefield.

Kylo, or Ben, (her insistence on using his birth name had stuck with him, especially as the Caretakers called him nothing but Tall-Man) took a moment to settle his reaction to her abrupt presence. The pops of sap in the firewood and howl of the squally wind outside resonated in his ears. Down by the rocks, the waves crashed in and ebbed—he drew breath with them. “What happened?” he asked at last instead of answering.

"Some days, it's hard to remember what I'm fighting for,” she replied. Rey held herself tighter. “All the death. The pain. How can anyone bear it?"

He'd only seen her like this once before, so confused and directionless. It was after she'd confronted herself here, on this island. He felt her need now as then and gathered, drawn to her. “You mean, how do I bear it?” His fingers shook as they touched her cheek, her skin was smooth against his. She turned to him but broke away quickly and then stalked a few steps off to sit cross-legged on the floor, her spine taut, eyebrows pinched.

He followed and settled by her side, put his long legs out, suppressing the urge to reach for her again. “Are you going to tell me what's wrong?”

She inhaled and let go air slowly. “I sent some people on a mission today. As they went, I foresaw that they weren't coming back.” She twisted her hands together. “They were people I cared about and I knew they were going to die out there.”

“You had a death vision?”

She nodded jerkily.

He put his hands between his knees to keep them from wandering. “Force visions aren't fact, only interpretation, you know this.”

“I knew Ben. I knew that they were going to die.”

He glanced at her and sighed before replying. “Then sometimes, for the greater good, sacrifices are made.”

“Banthashite!” she spat. Her teeth showed for a moment before she pressed her lips together. She chewed something over and then clenched her hands. She was vibrating with strangled emotion.

“I don't have any easy replies for you, Rey. Except, people don't join the rebel cause not knowing what it may demand of them.”

She twisted to him, her face close to his. “My look changed and they knew. It's one thing, flying out, knowing that you might not come back. It's another when you are sent to complete a mission that you know will kill you.”

He felt the heat of her body through the untold miles between them, from where they physically sat and here. He wanted to comfort her. “Rey, what we do, what we are, is imperfect. The Force cannot be judged coequally. It's an entity beyond us. We can manipulate it, but it's beyond our comprehension to mutually understand its will—if it even has one.”

She regarded him frankly. “Are you saying it wasn't predestined, but that my reaction caused—”

“I'm saying nothing of the sort. What I'm saying is you can't second guess everything. That kind of thinking becomes as obsessive as fanaticism. Too far either way and you'll drive yourself mad.”

“Since when were you the voice of reason?” she muttered, tone sour.

He snorted. “Since I've seen the other side.” Serious, he continued, “And assuming my mother hasn't started court marshalling those who refuse orders, the people you had go, elected to get into that ship or cockpit. That was ultimately their choice, not yours.”

“But I'm still alive and they are not—how do I live with that?” She bit her lip.

Ben took some time crafting his reply. “You exist with it every day, day-by-day—that's living with it.”

“Is this how you used to feel?”

“It's how I feel. It doesn't get any easier and it doesn't go away. Living, remember? That's what you said I had to do.” He still woke at night in a cold sweat, his mind ruthless in repeating back to him every dark vision from his past. He'd begun to understand how it always would.

Rey considered him, her mouth pulled flat. She mirrored his position and stuck her legs out straight. Finally, she said, “The longer this war goes on, the deeper I feel something growing in me—a vastness. It echoes with the voices of those I've lost. There's so many now. So many screams, so many people I'll never hear again anywhere else.” She shook her head.

Ben didn't struggle to keep up with her quicksilver mood but he couldn't fight his body any longer. He took her one hand in his. “There have always been voices other than my own in my head. As a boy, I often felt like I was under siege, even before I found out about my grandfather. It was public knowledge before I knew, and after, the looks I got from people...they convinced me that I was an issue to come. Fear spread to every interaction. I became lonely. But the notion of stripping away the walls I built up to function, to ask for help in understanding things terrified me even more. And the bigger the walls I built up became, the more I began to forget what lay beneath. Who I was.” He used his free hand to wipe his face. He found his cheeks were wet.

They'd never truly discussed his past like this, not since the flight here. On the odd occasion when they talked, she might ask if he knew something about a place, the Force, or the First Order, but never how. She had never thrown his past deeds back in his face. All things considered, he'd been happy enough to comply. He felt strange in going over it now as if in acknowledging his past, made it present again. It also felt wrong. She had come to him with a wound and here he was bleeding all over her. 

He rubbed the dampness of his tears between his fingers until the skin became tacky. 

Inoculations worked by giving a little bit of another toxin. He swallowed hard, soldiering past the laden feeling his throat. He went to stand to gain space but she held on to him. He focused on their joined hands and when she squeezed, he nodded, encouraged to continue. “It was then, I truly felt Snoke for the first time. His voice was so direct and encouraging, he got in and turned around what I thought I knew. He turned a benign seed malignant—it was everyone else, the galaxy, that was wrong. I was order and the power was mine to stamp the chaos out. From then on, every second glance I got cultivated this view. How could I be wrong? Power was born into my family, the Force made my grandfather, gave him its use as he saw fit. During the day, in the light, I could set aside the lust, but at night, it came back. The night I destroyed Luke's temple—when I saw my Master, _my uncle_ , turn from me...I initially defended myself to save him from the dark. But when I woke up, I wanted to kill him. Yet I couldn't do it. I spent many years taking that restraint out on others. I lost sight of everything but this idea of seizing control of my fate, no matter what the cost, no matter the number of screams reverberating in my head. I felt my fate had become entwined with the galaxy. I killed for what I told myself was a greater purpose. Now I see it for what it was: hatred of everything, particularly me, and the power I couldn't stop craving.”

Her hand trembled in his. He relaxed his hold, releasing her to move away should she wish. She left her hand to rest between them.

"I see," she said. 

“I'm not sure you do. You must understand that the decisions I made are in no way comparable to yours. Your current guilt—” Her hand twitched. “Rey, I didn't follow you so you could tell me what to do. Neither did the rebels you lost today. In loosing what I thought was control, I found direction. Those people you sent out, they went because they knew the direction they were heading—they were fighting to be free. Don't become lost in thinking you can control that for them.”

Rey, as he spoke, pulled her knees up to her chin and dropped her chin down on them. "It just hurts so much," she said and fidgeted some more.

“If you felt nothing, you'd be the monster. But you're stronger than this. Tomorrow or the next day, you'll tame these thoughts. Your ability to permit events to shape you, but not control you is admirable. I wish I were more like you. Being here, the pace of the island has given me the freedom to understand many things about myself. My weakness is I react. You on the other hand, you take charge.”

She gave him a brittle smile. “Being in command—it's hard. I don't know how Leia has managed to stay so— _her_ —throughout.”

“Practice. She's been doing this a long time. Have you talked to her, or Dameron? They know better than me about the responsibilities of being in command, how conflict impacts upon the self.” He glanced around the tiny cell he slept in. “To be devil's advocate, a part of it _is_ sending out other people to do awful things, believing that your quest is right. You can't let doubt control you. Nor regret.”

“I spoke to Poe. He gave me similar advice." Her jaw worked, repressing some emotion. "He said, _“Doubt and regret are part of what we do. They're an obligation to the truth, but you've gotta resign 'em to the back of your head.'_ ”

“You sound angry with him.”

"I'm not. Not really. Poe is a brilliant commander."

Ben put a big hand on her face and coaxed her to look at him. He didn't read her mind, but her thoughts were very close to the surface.

“I see. You're angry at him for being honest,” he stated.

She rolled her eyes and then they gazed at one another. His thumb brushed near her mouth. Out of nowhere, she leaned over and kissed him on his nose, then pulled back, eyes searching. He broke eye contact first, gaze dropping to his feet; bony and pale, they seemed ghostly and not like his own in the firelight. Rey, by his side, dropped her face into her hands and then let off a noise of sheer frustration. After a moment, she said, “I'm not angry at him at all. I'm angry at me. We haven't seen each other in two months. And when I messaged, he was in the middle of a skirmish. I'm angry at my own selfishness. I wanted my lover, not a senior officer. I wanted him to make it all go away for an hour.”

Ben exhaled shakily before he half-twisted to her and pulled her to him in a companionable way, arm around her shoulder, tucking her body into the side of his. Her shivers eased slowly.

“At least you recognise it. And you're not selfish. You miss him—that's loving someone. As it is to understand that they are their own person. That they need to do their own things.” An aspect of relationships it had taken him a long time to learn, he silently admitted. 

Ben lowered his nose to her crown and inhaled her scent. He saw through her roiling thoughts. She wasn't unaffected by him, nor his body. The hardness of his limbs, the man who had been her captor and her enemy. He also sensed how she wanted someone to not absolve her exactly, but for a moment make her forget. Either that or punish her for what she'd done. No wonder she'd ended up here. 

He set her back from him carefully. “Come on now," he told her. “You don't need penance, you need focus.” He glanced at her to see a tear fall down her cheek. She brushed it away.

“I know. I'm caught up in it, blood on my hands, et cetera."

“You were reacting. And as I said, that's not you."

She sniffed. "Even so, it's wrong of me to burden you this way. I worry it must seem that I only come to you so you can hear my confessions.”

“It's healing to share. Especially with someone who can't share your fears further.” He picked at a fleck of straw sticking out of his cowl.  “Also, with someone who has done much worse.”

“Damn," she muttered. "It's cruel of me...when I know how you feel. I'm sorry." It was direct—his feelings were another topic they were deliberately polite about.

He rolled forwards onto his knees, which put a little distance between them. "There's nothing to apologise for. I'm always pleased to see you and I'm always pleased to help.” He stood. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but sharing pain...isn't that what friends are for?” They gazed at one another through another loaded silence. "I might be wrong," he added softly, "I've only got one."

Rey inclined her head and he offered her a hand up. She took it and got to her feet, motions slow. They remained holding hands.

“It might seem hollow to announce this now, but also I came because I wanted to see you. It's been a while,” she said.

“One year, three months, and ten days since I've seen you properly. Six months since you...visited.” He grinned self-consciously. “Not that I've counted.”

Rey laughed. It was a deep and womanly sound, only slightly tinged with the sound of her former tears. He liked these subtle changes in her as she aged. She touched his face and gave him a watery smile. “Ben...just so you know, whatever you did before, you made the choice to be different. You're different now." She leaned her forehead against his chest and then stepped back. "I managed to make out a little bit from those old texts before you had them burned. A phrase caught my attention: _the darkest shadows are cast by the brightest light._ There is so much light in you these days. Don't forget it.” She kissed him on his bearded cheek and vanished.

***

That night, Ben remained hovered at the edge of sleep for longer than usual. Thoughts and feelings swamped him as he tossed and turned; his mind off-kilter after Rey’s visit. He groaned a number of times, he’d got up and paced before he returned to his bed, only to become caught up all over again. Distracted, he kicked free of his itchy coverings, airing his skin. Still uncomfortable, he twisted one way, and then another, before he flopped recumbent once more on his back. By increments, his mind eventually sank away and his breathing eased. Finally, he slept.

In the middle of the night, the rain which had drenched the island all day passed over as his low fire settled to burning coals. A pod of sea creatures moaned eerily across the water.

It was in these dark hours when Ben's slumbering heart rate changed and his even breathing became irregular. Around him, pots on the shelves of his cell clinked and parchment leaves fluttered, disturbed by unseen currents. Internally, Ben walked misty paths, the wayside shifting perspective by turns as pictures rose up from the depths.

***

He dreamed he was at Luke's ruined temple. He was a spectator as the children who'd followed the boy Ben fought a war while he'd been knocked out by the power he had unleashed at his uncle. He saw himself out cold, and then stood beside his boyish self when he awoke to find that he had become death. In the dream, he raged as he once had over Luke, bathed in that darkness, mind churning with resentment. In sleep, Ben tasted gore and cinders on his lips. His breathing rapid, his tongue tried to wipe the bitterness away as he pushed to run from the memories.

His dreams, nightmares, moved on. The images became drenched in red. He lay prone before Snoke, the dark Master ripping through his mind, building his rage, laughing at his better memories. His new Master sent him out to kill. He obeyed, thrilled by the power unleashed with the yoke of restraint removed.

Adult Ben, asleep, smirked unpleasantly, and then let off a low keen.

He drifted back into normal sleep. His body eased for a time, and then he dreamed again.

This dream didn't have the hallmark of a memory. The pictures in it jumped around and impressions were vague.

He and Rey sat on the rocky cliffs of the island. The image of a campfire burning hotly appeared in his mind. So did the picture of a setting sun turning the moon pink. The circles merged. Rey leaned back on her elbows beside him, her face lit by the warm colours. She laughed at something he said. He watched her wave to someone he couldn't see. Then she ran to the cliff and dived into the deep pool of the cavern below. He feared for her as the darkness swallowed her. He saw his face in the water. Then the dream came to an end.

He slept some more, only to dream further. This dream was neither a memory nor was it indistinct. It washed over Ben and pulled him like a wave, down into nebulous depths which hummed, cadenced harmoniously. He didn't fight it—muscles lax, he willed it to pull him under. 

***

_The tingle that always announced her nearness flared in his head and he opened his eyes and met her gaze. She returned his look warmly. He broke away from her face to look at her body to find that she was unashamedly as naked as he. He reached out, needing to touch her. His hand trembled with excitement where he rested it over her one bare breast. Her skin was firm, the shape of her up-tilted, and the nipple hard. She breathed deeply under his touch and his hand rose and fell with her inhalations. His fingers shifted to cup under the weight of the curve, barely touching her skin. He flicked his eyes back to hers. Her pupils were blown and she leaned into his touch. The tingle which had started in his head spread to his skin._

_There was no modesty here; just as there was no misread intent. She wanted him and he wanted her more than he'd wanted anything in his entire life. She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips, and then pulled back._

_Captivated, he was seized by just how perfect she was: the lithe shape of her, her dark hair tightly bound up in those three little buns - the style suddenly so erotic; fiercely held in place but for a few escaped tendrils that framed her forehead and ears. Everything about her was strong and yet also soft. Those stubborn dark eyes which sparkled at him and that slightly parted bow mouth which she dampened with her tongue. He watched her take a steadying breath and he echoed it. She nudged with her chin for him to lay back and he obeyed. She crawled up and over him._

_Rey positioned herself with her thighs either side of his hips and her hands on his shoulders. She kissed him again and he shuddered when she deepened the kiss, tilting her head to the side, inviting him to kiss her back. Thirsty for the contact, he crushed his mouth up to hers desperately. His hands embraced her and encircled her waist. But he couldn't keep them still. They eased over her backside, her hips; fingers inching shyly towards her parted thighs. Rey pushed her breasts into his chest and the crushing need in response compelled him to move. He knelt, drawing her up with him until the whole of her front was flush with his body. He couldn't control his hips—they butted of their own volition, pushing his pelvis gently into hers._

_Rey seemed as unable to keep still. She arched backwards to maximise the area of her body his mouth could reach. He kissed her forehead, across her face, down her throat, lifting her so he could explore her upper chest. He kissed her skin reverentially, his touches delicate as if she were something insubstantial rather than the solid woman she felt in his hands._

_"Ben," Rey muttered. She said his name, over and over. Her words, the shape of her arched ribcage and heavy eyes transfixed him. She purposefully sucked on her bottom lip to tease him. The heat in his blood intensified, and Ben beamed before taking her one nipple in his mouth and sucking on it hard. He nipped around the areola with his teeth, and then sucked on it again.  
_

_In his arms, she'd begun to pant. Her hands slipped from his sweaty shoulders, down over his lean body, nails grazing. She commanded him to touch her, to taste. She grasped him, luring him closer. His desire absolute, he pushed them both over, so she was on her back. He'd do whatever she wanted and let her do whatever she wanted to him. Beneath him, she took his penis in hand. She stroked the loose skin of the length and cradled the drop of his testicles. Ben took air in shallowly, quivering as he watched her discover his flesh. He focused on her nose to steady his responses. No one, man or woman, had ever struck him the way Rey did. No one had ever held his body this intimately before._

_Her eyes half-lidded, she noticed his reaction. She smiled. In this place, her feelings were as bare to him as her body. He witnessed the way she looked at him, with care and compassion._

_His lips formed a brief answering grin and then he groaned when she dipped his cock, and placed it between her legs, positioning the head. Eyes locked with hers, teeth clenched, he sank inside her. Her vaginal walls were tight and hot. Motionless, he kissed her. He almost didn't want to move. She stirred first, tilting her hips below his. She moved sinuously and Ben felt his whole body rendered alive by her touch. He unfroze to meet her. He cupped one hand under her rear. The knuckles of his other hand skimmed over her stomach, up to her breasts. He captured one and set again to taste it as he had before, rolling the tip between his teeth._

_Below him, she breathed even quicker now. Perspiration glinted on her skin. He made a muffled noise against her breast and then dropped down onto her body and rolled on his back, so as not to crush her. Once again, she leaned over him and he clamped his hands around her hips to help her move._

_Rey, head hung, hair coming undone, pressed unrestrained kisses to his marred chest. He caressed her back, curled a hand around her collarbone. He was blown away by the sight of her, by the mounting raw need he felt. She seared him hotter than when she'd cut him down._

_Repeatedly, she propelled herself forward and then tugged him so she was once more underneath. He kissed her temple. Then he linked her legs around his waist, crossing her ankles so that he could thrust easily. Rey's fingers drifted to her pubis, down into the folds. She made low, husky sounds into his shoulder. He pressed his face into her neck and arched over her, granting her even greater leverage to move. Her fingers jerked between them—she was so wet. Her free hand fisted his hair before it trailed down his back. She stroked the cleft above his buttocks and he shivered.  
_

_He was still trembling when he reared his head up and took her jaw in his hand. "Rey,” he whispered. His breath stirred the wayward strands of her hair. "I love you," he said, into her mouth.  
_

_"I know," she murmured back._

_Ben's pulse raced. His thrusts became intent. He eased in and out of her, gaining pace. The fervour between them continued to build—and then it peaked. He paused, sensing the impending rush: tightly rapt, her body gripped his, and then she relaxed on a sigh. He waited for her to settle before he pressed in again firmly a few times. At last, he gave a muffled shout—lightness breaching the barriers of his brain—and he came hard, his energy draining out. His whole body pulsed in little aftershocks until he was soft inside her._

Hazy, Ben twitched in his sleep. He pressed his face into his pillow, smelling the coastal wildflowers he'd dried and added to the hay. His thighs were hot but not sticky.

In the dream... _Rey spread languid and flushed below him. Mellow, she framed his face with her hands. "You should know, I love you too."_

_He felt as if something sparked deep within her body, in the place where they were still joined._

Eyes closed, Ben smiled wistfully. Some of his cognisant self returned as the dream began to slip from him. _"No you don't, but it's okay."_


	5. The present...

_"That Rey's children—are mine."_

His own words repeated in his head on a loop as he stared up into Poe's face. Ben stumbled further over his next ones, an urge to now deny what he knew to be true. "But they can't be? I thought—"

Poe tugged his ear and then snorted forcefully down his nose. "If you think you're surprised, imagine how Rey felt." The pilot contemplated Ben, expression unreadable. He then leaned forward and gestured for Ben to walk before him into an anteroom. Ben, conflicted, did as directed, eyes on his mother. The doctor seemed to be having some success in stabilising her. Inside the room, Poe closed the door behind them, giving them a measure of privacy. 

Alone, the two men were silent for a long moment. Poe studied him with obvious intensity. Ben scrambling to make sense of everything, didn't bother to hide his confusion. Appraising Poe in turn, Ben found his face fixed. Poe was holding it together, just about; his previously worked up feelings under control. The pilot's composure spread to Ben slowly as the younger man appreciated Poe's authority over the situation and his firm hand over the Resistance in the face of this. Ben could recall telling Rey that night, how she didn't react, she took charge. It seemed Poe had a similar character trait. Ben had been in this man's head; Dameron had learned how to be this way.

Ben looked pointedly at the floor, then back up. "How did Rey feel?"

Astonishingly the pilot smiled, his teeth flashing.

Despite everything, Ben couldn't deny the other man's charm. He had all the flair of his own father. He watched him quietly.

Poe's smile faded a little. "She was... unprepared for the news."

Ben understood that. The long angles of his features worked through little expressions, speaking of his hesitancy. "And my mother?"

Poe paced. "Concerned." He flicked a look back over his shoulder, through the privacy of the plexiglass door to where the activity still went on around Leia. "Rey was ready to stand down from duty, and Leia wasn't taking any chances with her health. I can't think what possessed them to leave." He sighed. "I almost don't know how I've managed to go on without them." He raised two hands to either side of his stubble darkened face and huffed out a breath. "It's why you're here Ren. The Resistance needs them back. I want them back. And I think you do too. So what have you got? Did you see anything in the General's mind?"

Ben gathered his faculties. "She showed me a brief glimpse of when they were attacked. Rey told her to go, that she had time—I imagine because of the children. After my mother's pod was ejected and hit, for a second, she saw a ship."

"Don't hold out. We've no time for dramatic pauses."

"It looked a lot like my _Upsilon_ , my old command shuttle... But significantly, it had a few minor alterations which suggest, if they still have it, she was taken by the Knights of Ren."

"Shit. But you said that they were destroyed. Rey said you destroyed them—"

"I fired on the communications tower of the complex they were in. I didn't want them dead if I could help it. These were people I'd known since boyhood. People loyal to me, no matter how strained and unhealthy our connection. Maybe I didn't kill all or any of them."

"Great. Your one act of mercy from those days may well have condemned Rey and her children!" Poe's nose was white rimmed with suppressed emotion—the fire coming back a little. He took a breath and put his hands out, palms up. "I'm sorry. Blame doesn't get us anywhere. Knights of Ren? We haven't seen any dark Force users since...you surrendered. At least we know who we are looking for, I guess."

The door opened as he spoke. Finn entered. "The General is back to how she was before, no better, but no worse." He addressed Ben, "Did you see something."

"A ship that once belonged to the Knights of Ren. But I don't know if it was them inside, or where it was heading."

"The General didn't tell you why she was there?"

"No. Her rational mind was locked away. I might have caused us both irrevocable damage to push further. She gave me what she could."

Finn clicked his tongue. "So we know potentially who, but not where. Could you try Rey again?" he pressed.

Ben's head was still woozy from recent revelations and from being inside his mother's, but he nodded. "Yes." Squeezing his eyes shut until crazy lights played out patterns on the inside of his lids, he reached for her. He sighed in frustration before it occurred to him to think about how they had interacted in their dream. At the time, he'd assumed the dream had been his alone, but it couldn't have been. It hadn't been a conscious choice for either of them. There hadn't been many mornings since where he'd not woken up half-hard and unfulfilled, the smell and taste of her rendered into his senses. He focused inwardly, as he had before talking to his mother, and then reached even further inside, chasing that remembered smell, to where a trace of Rey's awareness seemed indelibly linked to his innermost self. The sensation of their closeness came back with remarkable ease. It rose up like an open hand, waiting to be held.

He knew the moment they fused: he felt their heart rates, breathing and thoughts merge. He felt a dropping sensation, and then his world plateaued. Blind, her/his ears traced the muffled sounds of what Ben read as heavy booted steps; mumbled, almost indecipherable conversation. Something freezing cold splashed against their face, filling their nose with the nothing scent of ice. They shivered and blankets were pulled up over them. Rey's awareness dropped to a blankness he couldn’t get anything from, and Ben came back to his own mind with a jolt. He found he was on the floor.

"Ren?" Poe had a hand on his shoulder. Finn was at the door, calling for the medical team.

Ben waived a curt hand and sat without aid. "Don't bother. I just need a moment." He pulled his knees up (annoyed they should witness this weakness) and put his fingers to his temples to organise his thoughts. "I didn't see anything concrete. She wasn't conscious, I caught her mind just a little." Ben took a breath, still dazed himself, and added grimly, "They're watching her. I heard the word: _viable_."

The tension in the room upped like a struck match.

Poe flicked open a commslink. "Kaydel—I want everything you can find, every bit of data we've collected on the Knights of Ren. I want it as soon as you—"

Ben stopped listening to him and put a hand down and pushed to standing. Something else about their connection remained with him. In the warmth of the tropical planet the Resistance base was on, his skin was puckered. He drew back his linen shirt sleeve to see gooseflesh all up his arm and then turned his hand to see how his fingertips were white and bloodless. Insight flashed. "Where did you say you found their ship?"

Poe closed his call. His neat brows were knit. "Anoat sector, Outer Rim Territories."

Ben squared his shoulders against the lingering shivers. He touched his nose, which felt as cold as his hands. "Anoat sector... It's been a couple of years since I've studied star maps, but isn't the Hoth system in that sector?"

"Yes—why?"

"A hunch. When I touched Rey's mind, she was cold. Icy cold."

"Space is cold," Finn said, letting the door slide closed, coming closer.

Ben inclined his head, acknowledging the point.

Poe still watched him closely. "Yeah, but the old rebels didn't build bases in just any part of cold space." Poe jiggled the communicator in his hand. "A hunch you say, or something more?"

Ben considered the question. His feelings told him he was right—but they had been off before. "I can't give you a percentage. It feels true though. Hoth feels important."

Finn asked, "Why?"

"If this is about more than harvesting Force sensitive children..." Ben swallowed the words, not sure really where his thoughts were heading. "We need to start looking somewhere. Rey went to that sector for something. Without any other clues, a search of the sector is the next logical step."

Poe nodded, and decisive, snapped into action. He opened his commslink again. "Kay—have the _Falcon_ refuelled and stocked with food, medical, and munition supplies."

Ben gritted his teeth at their choice of ship but remained silent.

Finn noticed. "She's an obvious ship."

"They found Rey's ship. It was unmarked. Besides, if they'd stayed to watch, they would have already seen us retrieve the wreckage in the _Falcon_. The fact they didn't, makes me think this isn't a large scale operation, so we still keep it small too. Start with Hoth. If we need to cover more ground, I'll add more people to search." Poe scratched his head. "Do _try_ to not attract additional attention."

"Anything we do could prompt them into killing her outright," Finn warned, then looked up on a sigh. "But we can't do nothing."

"If the First Order have her—" Poe began, voice bleak.

Ben interrupted. "The Knights and the First Order are not synonymous."

"Or they weren't," Finn added.

Poe looked strained and then nodded. "We can't risk everything for one person, even Rey." His features tightened. "And I can't go with you."

Finn straightened surprised. "What?"

"Price of command. These people need me here. And Rey needs a home to come back to...once you find her. I’m still debating whether to move the base, should we be compromised already."

Ben saw that these decisions were like solid blows to the man.

Poe pinned him with a stare. "Take the _Falcon_. It's recognisable but fast. And these people are going to know we're looking for them whatever ships we use.” He nodded at Finn. “Finn, enlist whomever you need...and go find our girl." 

Finn clasped him on the shoulder and left.

Ben, awkward again, stared through the door to his mother. The monitors on her were peaceful and so was her mind when he reached his awareness out. She had carried him within her as Rey now did their children. He couldn't imagine what that was like, to feel something, a life growing within. He only knew what it was like to take one.

He realised that his and Poe's earlier conversation remained unfinished. Haltingly he asked, "When she found out, _why_ _did she_ keep them?"

Poe's brows twitched. "You'd have to ask her that." And then he sighed and relented. "I don't think it's out of turn for me to say that had she realised early on, she might not have—yours or mine. But she didn't realise she was pregnant for a few months. I think by that time, she didn't see another option."

Ben felt a little sick. He swallowed compulsively and then pressed his bottom lip into his top. "So once again, she was left with no choice, because of me."

Poe let that hang a minute. "Come. You're going with them. And you need to be kitted up."

Ben refused to budge. He felt compelled to ask, "Why aren't you furious?"

"About the babies?" Poe huffed. "I wasn't happy about it at first, but I'm not mad. They're Rey's, and more importantly, they're innocents."

"Innocents," Ben repeated, stomach tight.

Poe's brown cheeks took on a rosy tint. "I’m not a jealous man. Any anger I hold for you doesn't stem from those kids. In this war, in life, you catch moments of happiness where you can. Over how it happened? I know from my own dreams, they take you places. You can't control them." He muttered something under his breath. "Rey was upset. She felt she'd betrayed me. But she's young. A lot younger than I am. She was naive about relationships when we first got together—I don't think Jakku even had a pond, let alone fishes swimming in it." The commander sighed again, and then came up closer to Ben, tilting his head up. Ben realised it must be hard for Poe, to stand here speaking to him after what Ben had done; how intimately he'd invaded this man's most private mind. "I don't trust you, I can't lie. But I need your head in this game, Ren...Solo—whatever. You two have this connection, so use it. If I had it I would, but I don't. I love her and her me. But she also cares for you. She admitted she had feelings for you, even before she found out she was pregnant. Before we got together."

Poe's comms beeped, but he ignored it.

"I don't see how you begin to atone for the things you've done, Solo. But I do get that you love her. So whatever has happened, we put it behind us for now. Let's get her back. The how, what, and who, conversations, they can wait. The priority is finding her. That's the only trust I can extend to you. So go find her, not for me, or you, but for her and those little kids. Do that."

Ben wet dry lips. "Yes," he agreed.

"Good," Poe replied. He pulled back and some of the animosity fled from his body language, "I think it's an old Jedi phrase that says something like: _never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow._ Keep making progress. And find her."

***

Ben and Poe walked side-by-side from the medical wing.  In front and behind were five armed rebels. Ben understood: protection _for me and from me_. There were no physical chains this time, but there felt like there were mental ones wrapped around his wrists and feet. Together, they passed through security points with doors which swung open and then clanged closed again behind them. He'd not noticed on the way in, his observations overwhelmed by the change in scenery and the crowds of people, but now he gauged how the rebellion had grown; there were so many people here, and countless impassive or flinty eyes watched the progress of their small group through the base. He found himself ducking his head instead of marching proudly as he once would. Inside, Ben felt threateningly as hollow. _I’m still me, wherever I go_ , he thought.

Poe, if sensing the direction of his thoughts, made a noise in the back of his throat, drawing Ben's attention.

"Finn's in charge of this, just so you know. You take direction from him. He's a good soldier. Will be an even better commander once he can learn like I have, that you have to put the many before the one."

"You told me I'm here for Rey, and I am." Ben caught the other man's keen assessing glance, forcing Ben to add, "I don't plan to start anything." He marshalled to stand taller.

"Just so we're on the same page." The older man stopped to respond to some questions from a couple of people. Further on, he was stopped again to sign something on a data-pad. Ben could see his mother's training in how the man dealt with the seemingly endless interruptions command necessitated with an eloquent calm. Ben, in watching him, already felt his own temper rise at the delay to their mission. He was relieved when they were free to move again. 

Poe continued, "From what I know of the Hoth system, it's surrounded by asteroid fields. It'll cover you going in, but make flying hard. I know you've not flown in two years. It'll be a challenge if Chewie and Rose can't handle it."

Ben wasn't worried about the act of flying. The first time he'd sat in a cockpit, he'd felt like he'd come home. Flying to him was as natural as breathing—he'd inherited the instinct and skill from his father and uncle. It was more the particular ship that he might have to fly which was the problem. Life being as contemptuous of him as he was of it, that first cockpit was the _Falcon's_. "I know how to fly—that's the smallest of our problems."

"Chewie won't let the ship go anywhere without him. He also won't step down from this search—he feels as protective of Rey as he did...well." Poe went quiet a moment. "So he's with you. I suggest the softly, softly approach," he added.

"With the wookiee or the enemy?" Ben asked, the corner of his lips quirked in a reluctantly dry smile.

Poe snorted. "Both." Something occurred to him, concern passing over his face. He stopped walking, Ben with him. The rebels behind them didn't miss a beat and paused too. Voice pitched low, the older man asked, "This may sound like a redundant question, but what do you think they will have made of your leaving?"

Ben set his shoulders, feeling overexposed. He replied, voice quiet, "I'm hoping they think I'm dead.”

What Ben didn't add was that he was worried, scared about what was happening, the hurt that could come to Rey. Primarily he was afraid that he might lose the balance he’d fought hard to attain...and that he’d be the one to do the hurting.

Sweat coursed down the line of his facial scar.

***

In the hanger, something trickled along Ben's awareness. Before he could turn to the sense of the disturbance, a loud voice rang out: "Ben Solo!"

Ben swallowed and ducked his head as Maz Kanata walked tiny, but terrifying, from out of the crowds of Resistance fighters, ground crews, and mechanics.

"Maz," he muttered by way of a greeting.

"Oh, don't you Maz me, young man. No! I've words to have with you."

Poe, curiously, came to his rescue. Quickly, he leaned down to the small female's ear. "Yes, Maz, but for once, can you have them privately? This here is not a scene I want."

The tiny alien blinked owlishly at Poe, then at Ben. "Then I'll postpone them for now."

"Maz," Ben started, voice worn. He shook himself. "I've a sense of Rey, but I don't know if I'm right. Can you look?"

Maz flicked her glasses and peered up into his face. Then she gazed at him intently. "Kneel," she ordered.

Ben dropped. His pupils flickered, chasing hers. After a moment, she drew back and sighed. "Your path was never going to be an easy one, was it kid?"

Ben tried to not react.

"I feel compelled to tell you the same thing I told your father, Rey, and Finn- _if you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people_."

He stood, noting the air of foreshadowing that cloaked her words. He pressed her, "Hoth...am I right?"

Something of Maz's usual compassion returned. "Yes. Follow your instincts concerning the girl. Trust in the light."

He nodded, but it was clearly to pacify the old pirate. "Her light."

The small female softened further. "It's not where you belong, though, is it? Always more than one foot in the shadows.” She closed one hand around his thigh. “Han, Ben, _Han_?”

“He helped me,” he whispered. “I...”

“Not here Maz,” Poe put in again, breaking the intensity. The mass of people around them seemed to have drawn closer.

Maz let go of Ben and hushed Poe with a wave of her hand. “I have something that belongs to the boy,” she said to Poe, but directing her next words at Ben. “Your mother couldn't bear to keep it." From within her various pockets, she pulled a lightsabre. It was black with a crossguard. To all present, she announced, "This is given to Ben Solo so he can save Rey and her children with Poe Dameron." Ben started. He kept from glancing at the man. "I am older than anyone else here, and I'm placing my trust in this boy for this mission. I beg others do too."

No one spoke. Maz stood as tall as she could and handed the weapon up to Ben. Her height and might Ben could have swamped, but physicality didn't come into it.

He accepted it and then bowed. The lightsabre felt strange in his hand, but also like it belonged there. Before any of the watching rebels got itchy trigger fingers, he took it an attached it to his belt.

 _"Thank you,"_ he said silently.

Loudly, Maz replied, "Now get out of my sight before I change my mind about you."

***

Ben sat uneasily behind Chewie. The wookiee was more than capable of flying the hunk of scrap, but Ben tensed as they exited lightspeed on the fringes of the Hoth system—the way before them was a wall of rocks and ice, amassing from the size of a pebble to that of continents.

"We'll have to proceed slowly from here on in,” Chewie informed them.

Ben saw Rose and Finn exchange glances. The urge in Ben to run away from the cockpit was as strong as the urge to dart forward and take command of the ship. The urges, being equal, induced him to stay put as a passenger, but tense, he gripped the side rests of his seat.

“Keep us as quiet as you can, Chewie. If we can recon the planet first, and then retreat, we might be able to stay out of their way," Finn ordered.

"Surely this clears up nearer the planet? Shouldn't we just calculate to come out of lightspeed past it?" Rose started to ask by his side.

The look of worry that passed over Finn's face stalled her.

Finn shook his head. "Without an idea of what we're exiting into, I think it's the wrong call. The asteroids are dangerous, but not as dangerous as a _Destroyer_. If it comes to a battle, the rocks should bide us time to escape. Give us boltholes at least. No, we assess the situation first."

Ben remained mute. He knew it was the wisest call; even so, he churned at the caution, using all of his tattered self-control to stay quiet. In his mind’s-eye, there now seem to be an antique timepiece counting down. Its ticks sounded ominously like the tap-tap of the golden dice which jangled from their perch by his ear.

Chewie flicked dials and took a breath. “Hold on to your dinners,” he yowled.

***

The asteroid field left them all sick and disorientated, but miraculously they made it through with stomachs, if not nerves, intact. Ben's hands only left the sides of his seat as the sea of asteroids parted and the ice planet rose up before them, crystal white and blue. He leaned forward as they came closer to it, reaching out with all his might...He couldn't feel Rey, but who knew what her captors had employed to hide her. Regardless, there was something here. Something familiar and yet altogether alien.

“There's nothing obvious on the scanners,” Rose announced. “Shall I send out droids?”

“But there is something,” Ben muttered. “I need to go down.”

***

The torch fired up and glowed, giving off little sparks. BB-8 controlled the blast, so the flame burnt a hotter blue and then he lowered it down to cut through the thick casing of the door.

"How many entrances were there?" Rose asked; speech muffled through the layers of clothing she wore.

"Two main entrances with blast doors that permitted the exit of ships and mounted patrols," Chewie said. “Plus several smaller people exits.” He peered down from his great height at the tiny door dismissively, doubt in his tone as to whether 'his kind' of people were considered when it was made. Frost coated his long fur and even the wookiee had on a robe of warm cloth draped around his shoulders against the frigid bite of the climate.

Hoth was colder even than Starkiller Base, Ben thought. He controlled his breathing to combat shivers. "We’ll all be dead, we stay out here any longer,” he commented. He wasn't being difficult—it was a simple statement of fact. The glacial temperatures sucked the energy out of a person, and he could feel worrying tingles in his fingers from the time they had already spent unearthing the entrance. The tingles weren't just from the cold however; the strangeness he’d felt as they had flown down lurked in his mind. He hadn’t voiced it to the others, but the Force was murky here, a fleeting thing, like trying to catch smoke. It couldn’t have been like this when his mother and uncle were here as Ben could barely stand the few hours they’d spent so far. He shuddered at the thought of having to live here long term. It reminded him of the magnetic fields used in Snoke's guard's armour - roiling and nauseating to be near.

At the groups’ feet, BB-8 worked oblivious to the cold. He'd cut a square-ish curve in the metal at the base of the door, and extending his chrome arm, continued to sweep the torch in an arc. The cutter slid through the door steadily. They’d had to dig to find the door. From above, the complex was almost entirely buried by snow. The others had argued that Ben’s instincts must be wrong, until they had noticed the indentations in the snowfall, detailing recent use; a dip adjoined to a mined shelf where a ship could have been stationed and then taken off from. They had left the  _Falcon_  there. It was hard to say how long it had been since other people had been here—the atmosphere of the planet changed the landscape rapidly—but the snow was soft. A single storm may have covered it.

Before Ben, a rebel fighter called Eerin was dancing from foot-to-foot in an effort, he presumed, to keep her circulation going. "I admit to feeling apprehensive. Like when we walked into the hanger on Crait.”

Ben stiffened.

Finn, the shape of his hood haloed by a corona of blue light, the plastic of his goggles blocking out his features, replied to her, “I know what you mean, but to me, seeing all this old technology, makes me feel positive. We held our own on Crait. And years ago, they won, against all odds, even after hiding on a base like this. We get Rey back, and then we can win this. There's a future for us."

Ben observed Finn place a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. He wondered if he should add how the problem with revolution was in the name: they had a habit of coming around again. He sighed, wishing Rey was here for more than just her safety—so they could talk. It was a struggle to connect with anyone else. 

“A future there may be, but over this place, I’m with Eerin,” Chewie wheezed. “Old roosts are for winged-people _._ ”

With the old wookiee's words winding like the wind through them, they watched as the torch completed its circle, the bright light of it reflecting back off the snow and exposed metal. The cut-out section dropped down with a muted clank, sending up a puff of air into the ice cavity they stood in. BB-8 rolled into the tunnel first, bumping over the flattened door with a casual chirrup. His blowtorch flicked back inside the revolving section of his body, and he beamed a light from his cap.

Finn's hand, still on Eerin’s shoulder, stopped her from following quickly. He went to step forward, but he in turn, was stalled by Rose. From a pocket, she pulled a data-pad. The indication strip showed green, but not all the way up. She switched it to read heat signatures—the scanner remained blue. She made a sound in the back of her throat and returned the pad to her pocket.

“No life readings?” Ben asked.

"Nope,” she replied. “And the air mix in here is off, high in nitrogen, low in oxygen, like outside—if they have been here in the last couple of days, I'd have thought the Co2 should be higher. I suppose there could be a rupture.” She pulled up her goggles and winced at the temperature hitting the exposed skin of her face. “I hope they have left some clues as to where they went—if they were here at all.” She looked at Ben side-ways on.

"At least there’s none of those munchy-crunchy cave creatures,” Finn added from where he now stood next to another rebel; another former stormtrooper from what Rey had told Ben. The man was known as Byrne. Finn turned to Ben and pulled his goggles off. "That we know of, anyway. You first,” he added, hand holding the goggles postured out in a courtly gesture.

Ben stepped forward and looked deeper into the corridor that they had uncovered, now faintly illuminated with BB-8’s light. He wasn't irritated by the persistent reservations: he understood their concerns. He stared into the tunnel, seeking composure. “There’s something here. And it’s important.”

“Hm,” Byrne muttered. “Not to ruin the positive vibe, but as we're going with, _“old roosts are for winged-people”_ , there’s a phrase the Stormtroopers used to have for asking too many questions about a mission.” He traded a glance with Finn and they chorused: “ _Curiosity is the ultimate painkiller.”_

Rose gave Finn a concerned look and swooped and stepped before Ben, switching on the light at her breast pocket. "If that's the case, which of you is the slowest? I'll stick with you. That way, I only have to try and outrun one of you.” She stood tall and progressed into the misty corridor bravely, the dusty snowflakes swirling in patterns around her slim form.

Finn and Chewie exchanged glances and un-clipped their blasters. Eerin and Byrne did the same. Banter aside, Ben could see how effective a team they were. Weapons held high, BB-8 and thrown light sticks ahead, the team moved out, eyes everywhere. The corridor stretched before them uniform for tens of meters. Overhead, pipes for air and water gleamed in their lights. The only sounds above the shift and crack of ice were their breath and footsteps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow" ~ Plato


	6. Hoth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have added some warnings.

BB-8 made it to the panel first. It was set into a rock wall next to a sealed airlock. The tunnel split either side of it, separating into a T-junction, where the routes headed off into darkness. The droid cursed in a series of beeps, seeing that the panel was dead. At length, he told the others how piqued it was as he'd have to work it open off his own power; he couldn't cut it, it was too thick. 

Rose knelt to BB-8's level. She tapped her data-pad. "There's no power anywhere," she informed him.

He gave a put-upon whirr but got to work.

Chewie tapped a claw at the door, and then leaving the droid and Rose to it, moved on with Finn further down one corridor. Eerin and Byrne turned to investigate the other. They agreed to meet back in no more than fifteen minutes.

Ben looked down at Rose and BB-8, and then glanced in the opposite directions of the two groups, surprised he was being given so much freedom. Finn hadn't once threatened him or ordered him to stay in sight. Apart from the asides about his instincts, no one had harassed him, and they had permitted him to make his own decisions about where to go and who to follow. Given his life since moving to Ahch-To, where the winters lasted many standard months, and the summers just a couple, dictating his daily activities, this leeway to decide his course of action bewildered him for a moment.

"Do you need me?" he asked Rose. She shook her head absentmindedly, focused on the task. The door called to Ben, but for the moment, he could do nothing to assist in getting through it (aside from attempting a brute Force pull, which might bring the whole tunnel down around them). As the kneeling woman and droid continued to talk to one another, he decided to follow Finn. He walked in the direction of the human and wookiee's distant light and then jogged faster when Finn's voice carried down the tunnel.

"Over here!" Finn called to Chewie, his voice bouncing off ice walls.

Ben reached the duo where they stood at the edge of a patch of red staining. It wasn't rust and it wasn't minerals. The frozen blood smeared on the wall and floor as if something standing had been hit and then dragged off.

"I think we best stay armed,” Finn muttered.

"My natural state," the wookiee replied, brown eyes keen.

Ben walked a few paces on following the blood, moving further ahead, seeing how far it stretched. He didn't want to unclip his lightsabre, the others had been cool around him and he saw no reason to court pain; even so, all the hairs on the back of his neck were up. Behind him, he heard Finn and Chewie follow to where the red stopped. A few metres on from there, and he found that the tunnel had collapsed. Ben came to a standstill, air frosting from his breath. With narrowed eyes, he put a hand up to the ceiling and the blackened ice. It came from the inside, not out. He ran the soot between his leather gloves and sniffed it. It didn't smell like plasma, nor was it chemically scented. Even as numb as his nose was, the soot smelt like natural burning.

"This looks like it came from inside," he ventured as the others caught up.

Chewie looked troubled, even more so than the rest of them. He lifted his keener nose and sniffed too. “Ground meal-grain.”

"Anything with high oxygen content in bulk form, like bags of flour and sawdust, are highly explosive,” Finn put-in.

Chewie nodded, agreeing.

“Why would someone with a mass of technology, use such a primitive explosive? What could they hope to achieve?” Finn wondered out loud.

“These corridors used to work like veins, connecting the hubs of base activity—or so I remember," Chewie said. “Could it be Rey, using what she had?”

“I'm sure if she'd have been awake and aware long enough, she would have made contact,” Ben said.

"Then who?" the wookiee questioned.

"Maybe they didn't just abandon this place because they were worried about discovery. Perhaps something else has been going on here, from before Rey was taken. This feels older." Ben twisted around, kicking up the debris of dirty snow that coated the shape of the corridor. In one spot, there was a blank space with more red staining, as if someone had crouched there. He used his boot to scrape away at it and then noticed that icicles had begun to form around the collapse. “The damage here is certainly older than a couple of days."

"We should go back to Rose and Beebee-Ate," Finn commented with finality.

Ben and the wookiee agreed silently and they all turned on their heels, making their way back with speed. BB-8 had the panel lit up and ready to open when they reached them.

The other rebels had also decided to return and stood guard around the woman and droid. Rose's nose was red and her dimpled cheeks were blotchy from cold. She looked in a temper. “It wasn't easy to break. They didn't want that door opened in a hurry—it took Beebee-Ate all those slicer skills he's been picking up from our sometime, so-called friend, Finn.”

The man frowned. “Are we ready?”

“As we're ever going to be,” Rose replied.

Ben looked at her, his face serious. "This is the way we need to go," he stated, and going against his earlier instinct, he drew his unlit lightsabre to hand.

The door opened on a hiss, leading into a large space. The darkness seemed to inch out of the egress, like ink spreading greedily over a dampened sheet of paper.

Chewie grunted. “I don't recall this place.”

They paused, and then the team moved in. Almost immediately they encountered a circular workstation.

Rose wiped a hand over the ice that had collected on it and hummed, and then called BB-8 to her. “We might be able to get the power back on after all.”

“Is that such a good idea?” Finn asked mildly as he bent over the panel, watching her and BB-8 begin to pull out wires and circuitry.

“I'm fairly sure this place is a relic.” She stopped. “Just in case, Beebee-Ate, look for any booby traps.”

Ben watched them for a few moments and then, feeling increasingly claustrophobic and frenetic, pressed on further into the darkness. He shone his light up, noting how the ceiling disappeared into the gloom. He also couldn't see the far end of the cavernous room. Thick, fleshy cables ran across the floor and he was careful to step over, rather than on them as he explored.

“I'd advise not breaking anything,” he said back to the others, warning the group clustered around the workstation.

“Gott'cha,” Rose said.

Ben assumed in reply, that was until the whole room illuminated and even he was lost for words.

***

The technology wasn't new. It had been around for decades. The equipment displayed here wasn't, however, the uniform fields of embryos rapidly gestated into warriors. The outfit appeared cruder, made by laymen. This also wasn't a field of thousands, but a small circle of pods, tubes from which ran high up into the air, like decorations on the inside of a temple.

The chill that ran down's Ben's spine at seeing them wasn't just from the sub-zero temperatures. Inside his body, his heart skipped a beat. His feet drew him on towards the circle of tanks. In his chest, the inkling of wrongness and gravity upped into full-blown alert.

He came to the first tank where the outer casing was open, but there was nothing inside. Empty, it resembled a sarcophagus.

He carried on to the next, and the next. They were all vacant, save one. The lid was still attached, the screens and buttons beside it dead.

Someone drew level with him—Rose. She glanced up into his intense face and then back down at the pod.

“Do we open it?” she asked.

Ben blinked and looked at Finn, and then the others. They all waited for him to reply. He understood: his instincts had brought them here looking for Rey and instead they had found this.

Chewie came closer and then lifted his nose as something attracted his attention. He gave a growl of worry and hurried to the other side of the circle of tanks, over to where a small section of the room had been curtained off. He yanked the cloth room divider aside and exposed a bed. On it were some heavy blankets and a grey scarf. The wookiee lifted it to his nose and moaned before he turned to them. He didn't have to say. It was Rey's.

“Chewie—is there blood?”

The wookiee sniffed and shook his head. “I do smell human female milk.”

Rose panted in distress. “Rey and I went to all her appointments together so I know it can happen anytime, but it tends to happen shortly before...so she can nurse them.”

Ben's head dropped as he worked to breathe normally. He realised his hands were locked on the top of the pod.

“We need clues. She was here. I think she was here when I felt her, but then they moved.”

Finn came closer to him and surprising Ben, offered him a gesture of comfort but putting a hesitant hand to his forearm. “You think whatever is in here will tell us?” Finn nudged his chin at the unopened pod.

Ben shook his head. “No. I feel it's going to tell us something else.”

***

In step, he and Chewie fed their fingers into the supports at either end of the pod, and maintaining steady pressure lifted the casing up. As it came, Ben felt his connection to the Force tug tight with familiarity.

Standing back straight, the wookiee and man gave each other a look before turning back to what they had revealed. On the underside of the casing, medical in appearance, was another monitor and various tubes. The screen was dead and the tubes were frozen. Under this top casing was another lid, covered with an opaque layer of ice. Without thinking, Ben reached over and scraped the frost away to reveal the transparent surface at the top of a tank. There was a body within, that of a young girl.

She was immersed in frozen liquid, on her side in foetal position with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around her body. The skin of her arms and legs was translucent and tinged blue. Into the ice fed one of the tubes, which became lost to the shadows near her abdomen. From the side of her head, short dark hair sprouted.

Chewie's hitched breath and scenting sniff seemed delayed to Ben, as if the wookiee wasn't quite sure what he was seeing and smelling.

Ben felt as frozen as the girl—he didn't need to see her face. It had taken him all of a second to realise. "Leia," he whispered.

***

"Can she be revived?" Finn demanded to know. He’d darted to the tank. Rose took a shuddering inhalation and leaned over to examine the controls. She attached her data-pad to a port and quickly made a careful examination of the machine that held the lifeless girl.

"Rose?" This came from Ben. He had backed away to permit Finn and Rose to get closer. She tilted her head at the strain in his voice. The grief in her expression gave both men an answer.

“I'm sorry. This isn't the right kind of technology. It’s not like the suspension they used in early deep space exploration. That was a stasis. She's just frozen. Ice crystals will have ripped through her cells, destroying them.” Rose pulled her hood back away from her hair and dropped her attention again to her pad. “I think she might have had something wrong with her—it doesn't say what. The records have mostly been deleted. Negative brainwaves...something. There's not enough buried information to know for sure.”

“So they just left her? Alone here, in this awful place?” Chewie shouted. The wookiee lifted his head and howled, causing Eerin and Byrnes to take a step back from him. Chewie proceeded to march over to where he'd found Rey's scarf and back, agitation in every line of his long body. “They left a baby! Babies are precious. When they die, there is mourning. Their spirits need to be—”

“It's okay big guy. It's okay,” Rose whispered. She placed the pad she held down and eased around Finn, taking careful footsteps up to the anguished wookiee. She cautiously reached up and rubbed his back. Chewie released another howl, which loudly reverberated around the hall, and then he crushed the small woman to him, hugging her close. Ben noted how the giant creature calmed slowly as the woman whispered to him, and Ben’s already high level of respect for her grew exponentially. The fearsome Chewbacca didn't like many people, originally pretty much anybody apart from his father, and by extension, then his mother and Luke. From there, Rey had earned his devotion, and now this young woman and Finn.

Reflecting on his parents and uncle channelled Ben's thinking. He bent and looked at the casing without seeing it, eyes deliberately not directed at the frozen body of the child.

“Ben?” Rose asked.

Aside from self-soothing, which he still had to work at, he was out of practice at catering to the emotional needs of anyone except Rey. Everyone looked to him now as if by the ties of his bloodline, he could explain what they were seeing. Eventually, he stood up from the tank.

“Theorising out loud, I speculate that they came to Hoth looking either for a place to hide or more insidiously, for medical data,” he began. “They must have found something of my mother here, preserved in the ice. As we know, cloning technology has been around for well over half a century, but the expertise and equipment to do it isn't easy to steal or replicate. It takes skill. I figure, this was their plan—come here to find samples in the frost. The Resistance left this place in a hurry—pieces of DNA could have been all over. Maybe even medical files...and why seek out children sensitive to the Force, when you can just create some?”

“It seems a long shot, but the evidence is here,” said Byrne.

“Children not just Force sensitive, but with the potential to shift sways in light and dark,” added Rose, stepping away from the wookiee and leading him back to the group by the hand. “They wanted to make Skywalkers.”

“The question is,” whispered Finn, “Did they fully succeed?”

The group looked over the other nine empty pods. _Could there be another nine tiny versions of his mother living and breathing? What would that do to their individual balance?_ Ben questioned. _No wonder she had been out here—she must have sensed them. And Rey wouldn't have let her go alone._ He also understood why they hadn't included others—this was so deeply personal. He tried to calm his rising panic.

Rose, seemingly ever practical, returned to her data-pad and walked over back to one of the empty tanks. She inserted the connector into it and began to analyse whatever information she found. As she did so, Ben forced his attention down upon the frozen body below him.

He examined her physique and found he could see that she had muscle definition, suggesting that there had been some sort of current throughout gestation, flexing and toning her limbs. The intention was that she be birthed mobile, fit, and ready to fight. A moment later, he thought of something else. It plagued him as he looked at the body. _What if there were other versions of her, but they weren't children?_ A tiny part of him was tempted to reach out, to feel along the Force, but caution hammered the urge down. Losing his mind to a cluster of women as powerful as his mother, but potentially twisted by the cloning process and the dark, was not something he could afford. He still needed to find Rey.

As they waited for Rose to connect to each of the other pods, Ben shot a look at Chewie. "And none of this was here before?"

The wookiee lifted his paws. “I remember the layout—this absolutely wasn't part of it.” Helpless, he gazed down at the dead child. “We were here for many months, mostly working patrols and getting food in and information out. Luke got sick. And your parents argued. They fell in love.” He made a low grief-stricken purring sound. “When the base was discovered, Han got Leia out. She was determined all others go first. It was a fight.”

Ben tried not to think of his parents, young and in love. He sighed instead, frustrated by his own lack of knowledge. “The only thing I know about cloning is that when it comes to those who are Force sensitive, it has a tendency to make them go mad.”

Rose walked back over to them. “The data on most of the other pods has been corrupted and then deleted. There are fragments, but it’s in code. We’d need a translation. The only thing not scrambled are the dates the pods were opened. Some of them were opened a while ago, and then some very recently.” Her eyes were vague as she scrolled over the information, and then they sharpened. She opened up her comms link to the _Falcon_.

“Threepio—can you hear me?”

“Yes! Are you returning soon?” There was a hopeful tone in the droid's voice. “It's quite lonely back here.”

“Soon. Listen, I'm going to send you some degraded and encoded data—it concerns a cloning process we've found practised here. I need you to use all your abilities to unscramble and then search for word fragments, patterns for probable words, and finally run a scan on the frequency of use of those words—pretty much, look for whatever you can find that may be of value.”

“Yes, but—”

Rose cut off the droid's chatter. And then looked guilty. “I shouldn’t do that to him. He's so old now, he deserves some respect...it's just he's incapable of coming to a point quickly.”

Ben's lip threatened to give her a half-smile.

Rose looked down at BB-8. “Buddy, could you send this if I connect you up?”

He beeped a ‘yes’.

“Smart,” Ben acknowledged with a tilt of his head.

Rose inclined her head back. Finn smiled at her.

Threepio didn’t waste any time. His voice blared through Rose's comms only a short while later. His usually excitable well-articulated tone was different.  He sounded sombre. “Analysing the few sections of data left, and discounting conjunctions, technical words for the cloning process, and assuming the information you seek concerns outcomes—the reports show a high-frequency use of the words: ‘negative,’ ‘termination,’ ‘deceased’...and ‘violent.’”

“I don't know how I feel about that,” Finn muttered.

The humans traded glances, their faces a study in mixed emotions.

“If there are others out there, and they are dangerous—” Eerin began to say, only to be drowned out by Chewie's taken-aback roar.

“It's wrong! They are still babies, even if not Leia.”

Ben swallowed his uncertainties. “You're right.”

“I want to burn this one. Honour her death,” Chewie insisted.

“I agree,” Eerin placated.

Ben once more on the side of demons replied, “If for nothing else, it's practical. Biological data is much harder to dredge up from ashes. I was fastidious about this when with...Never mind." He pursed his lips. "We'll care for the child and then I think we should burn the whole complex.”

"Let's get her out,” Finn said decisively. “I'm not a clone, but I know how it feels to be treated like you're nothing more than meat for a purpose. Should it have happened, I'd have liked that someone acknowledged my death, no matter how slightly..." He scratched his chin, looking awkward. "She didn’t even have a name."

Ben, setting aside guilt, understood. “Choose her one.”

" _General,"_ said Byrne, "Because, if she is anything like Organa, her spirit is that of a fighter.”

Thinking ahead Finn commented, “If there are others, we need to find them.”

“But where do we look?” Rose asked, her one hand flapped by her side helpless.

Finn pulled Rose into his arms, and then patted Chewie's chest—the wookiee was still clearly distraught. “Everywhere. We’re not giving up.”

***

They blew the base first, hoping that the assault had destroyed every bit of medical information. They then flew several miles away to a canyon where Chewie recalled that the ice shone the colour of azure, in even the weakest of sunlight.

Outside, in the arctic temperatures, the humans, droids, and wookiee constructed a pyre. On top, wrapped in the robe he’d worn, Chewie placed the body of the girl. He'd covered her gently, ensuring her limbs were comfortable, and then stood back.

As he’d moved, his song was mournful, bittersweet, but also hopeful. It spoke of her re-joining the great trees of life; words Ben understood, having heard them as a child, in attendance with his parents at a wookiee funeral ceremony. The lament ended, and Ben leaned forward and lit the pyre. The flames looked beautiful; a terrible kind of beauty, Ben thought. Like the lines of energy from Starkiller, burrowing through space. He closed his eyes and shook his head, feeling disorientated.

It was then that pain lanced through his shoulders.

He gasped and went down. Instantly, he was transported.

 _Rey!_ he realised.

His pulse thumped in his temples and the world shifted, becoming even more dreamlike than before.

 _Ben!_ she screamed back.

***

He cornered the feel of her, then registered where he was: inside her head—the connection deep.

The world around them rolled. She was being dragged, the grainy floor passed blurringly below her feet. They hauled her through a door into another room, where her captors pressed her roughly down into a chair, wrenching back her arms to stop her from fighting. One kneeled against her thighs, as the other secured her hands and feet with the restraints. Once immobile, they released her.

Rey pulled in vain at the straps, panting in desperation. Her mind was scattered, making her grasp on the situation feeble. Ben fuelled his will into her, clawing at cognition.

“ _I’m here,”_ he told her. “ _Use me.”_

Rey mumbled something unclear, and then forced out, "Let me go."

Ben understood it wasn't directed at him.

She ran her dry tongue around her mouth and tried again. “Please? My children…” It was hard for her to form sentences.

She blinked and got her eyes to focus some. Her captors stood before her, dressed in robes, their faces were concealed behind masked helmets. Their visors told her nothing.

"I won't—" she started, to be cut off when a voice spoke over hers.

"Stand back."

The order came from behind Rey. She couldn't see its owner, so neither could Ben. He couldn't quite place the sound of it. It had an unfamiliar wheezing quality; one which didn't disguise the power of darkness. Rey felt it and unconsciously shrank back into the depths of the seat. The movement left her swollen belly protruding and unprotected before her. She realised this slowly and then leaned as far forward as she could, half curled over it.

The owner of the voice stepped around the tilted chair. Before her, the figure paused. They were dressed head to foot in a robe, the cloth made of rough textured grey material. His face—Rey, and Ben through her, sensed it was male—was bound by the same material. Even his eyes were covered by gauze. Only his mouth was uncovered; the skin wrinkled, raw from scar tissue. His voice didn't seem to issue from it, however, but from a device at his throat. Lights across it blinked, scoring lines in Rey's vision. Ben felt recognition draw him, but not enough for identification. Something about the man's energy was confused.

The figure leaned into Rey's face—his breath smelled sweet. “You are an amazing creature, my dear,” he said, voice kind. He reached a hand out, curling it but not touching her head. The hand trained down to her stomach. “And so are these...” His hand shifted, and he tidied up the cotton tunic she wore, covering her bare thighs. Ben belatedly realised Rey's genitals were sore, and not just from the babies pressing over her bladder—her captors must have inserted a catheter while she was out and removed it recently. He also felt the latent sting in her forearm from a cannula needle (her/his eyes found the bruise,) through which they must have fed her. The lack of autonomy sent Ben's temper spiking, which invoked Rey's. The hooded figure continued to handle Rey like he had every right to do so as he patted her hair. “There now. After Hoth, we don't want you to become ill. We need you strong."

"Let me go!" Rey hissed, mustering all her mental agility. “I won't tell you... anything. I'll fight you!"

"We don't wish to fight you, my dear. No.” The hooded figure shook his head in pity. He tapped one long skeletal finger against her temple in a reprimand.

Swallowing deeply, Rey rallied further, but tried a different tact; "You want me, you have me. I'll do...whatever you want. Just...the babies...to Leia."

"Noble.' The figure laughed. “We can already do whatever we wish to you, Rey. And your children are ours.” He stroked her cheek, brushing at the tears and sweat beading on her skin. He moved in further still, his breath fanning her face as she pressed as far into the seat as possible.

“Leia...Poe...their father, will get them back.”

The figure smirked this time. He lifted a hand to indicate the shaded space around them. "They will find Hoth. A useful planet, but it's not the most hospitable place to raise the newly born."

He moved away from her and flicked on one of the overhead lights. Ben's anguish flicked back to Rey. He knew what those machines did—cause pain. The light blinded her vision for a second, then the intrusion began. The figure continued to walk away, flicking on more lights, the jarring feeling worsened with each one, making her teeth rattle. He worked back to her. Seemingly cowed, Rey sank back, exhausted at the strain. Then she pushed forward as she sent her awareness out like a viper...but it held no venom. The energy drained out of her attack and the figure slapped her push aside with a gentle shrug.

“This machine confuses senses. It makes your body think it's hurt but causes no physical damage, other than raising blood pressure. We don’t _think_ it should harm your children, but...” he threatened. He pressed something, and Rey gasped. The tendons in her neck stood out as she whimpered and then she started to shake as the situation grew uglier. Closing her eyes against the sickness she felt rising, she didn't notice the approach until the figure's hands rested over her restrained ones.

His meaty scent haunted her; enveloping and bringing with it dread. She dropped her head and plaintively whispered, "Please?"

"We've tried to get in your head, but you've grown formidable shields. The General has taught you well. So to business: there is one simple question I want the answer to—where is Kylo Ren?”

She shook her head, denying him. He leaned over and pressed another dial. Black spots swallowed her vision as the probe intensified.

“No,” she whispered, her word hardly audible.

"Come now. Is it worth your children to hide him?"

His amused voice carried across to her dull hearing; his words almost drowned out by the thud of her heartbeat. She moaned. To Ben, it felt like her head had been slammed through with a thin, fine needle, long and precise, burning hot like an ember. He gathered use of the Force to manage the pain, but whatever they had been pushing into her system made her, and therefore his, grasp of it here slippery.

"Tell us where he is," he urged. "You can't fear his return that much—you didn't kill him, we know."

 _"Hoth! Tell him!"_ Ben urged.

"Uh-uh," Rey grunted through gritted teeth, refusing both men. She jerked in the chair; the straps which held her down scratched the skin of her wrists and ankles. Perspiration dripped down her face.

"We'll do this until you lose consciousness unless you tell."

Every nerve ending jumped and she and Ben lost sight of the room around her. In her stomach, a low ache started.

 _"No, please, no!"_ she thought at Ben. He understood what was happening. What the machine had triggered.

 _"Where are you?"_ he asked back frantic.

Rey was plummeting. Fraught, she looked up. High above was a wide window which showed the sky. In it, bright circles blurred.

The device sent another wave of pain through her brain.

 _Hot._ _Desert. Dry—_ she thought, the words slipped through her head before she could stop him from hearing. Before he could do more, she shoved him away hard, and he lost consciousness.

***

Ben woke to find his body flat on the floor of the _Falcon_ with Rose bent over him. He couldn't tell how much time had passed.

“We have to move...now!” he shouted, lurching to his feet.

“Where?”

His eyes twitched as he thought back. "The desert," he whispered.

"Jakku?" Finn demanded.

Ben looked up, mind playing over the image of the twin suns through the window. He knew for sure where she was this time. And there was no time to lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah yeah, predictable, I know, but making up planets is hard in this canon. I hope this hasn't gone too off-piste for people. I got carried away, pilfering from old stories of mine. I'm also sorry there's so much crappy dialogue. (What's that about show, don't tell? Ha-ha...sobs.)


	7. Tatooine

The light from the hologram tinged each of their faces blue.  Currently featured in its centre were three representational circles, plus many lines and numbers showing the gravitational shifts and solar flares of binary suns, focusing particularly on their effects upon one small planet in orbit. At the edges of the hologram, rotated columns of reports on terrain and tactical intelligence.

Poe's ghostly figure drifted before the star map and walked around it, his shape flickering in and out of view for the team aboard the  _Falcon_.

"You're sure?" the man asked using his hand to indicate towards the planet.

Ben, aboard the  _Falcon_ , approached the other's holo-image. “Unless they rigged the ceiling somehow and faked it for Rey's benefit, which seems elaborate. They could have hidden her in a featureless room aboard a ship—she’d have been none the wiser.” He paused. “Yes, I'm sure.” 

“And they believe Rey’s still your enemy?”

“Yes,” Ben admitted, his voice tight. “As far as I understand.”

“We could play on that,” Poe hedged. “Their numbers?”

Ben looked directly at the display. “After what we found on Hoth—I've no clue.”

“I've refused him permission to go on ahead alone,” Finn informed Poe.

Ben's faced twitched in annoyance. He regretted telling Finn all that was said; who they were really searching for.

Finn segued passed the tension. “If I was on a desert, sparsely populated planet, where would I hide?” he said loudly. Moving to the hologram, he pointed to a list on the side. “Tactically, you start with the populated areas.” He gestured, following the lines of information. “These are the main ports, Mos Espa and Eisley?” he asked not seeking an answer. “And these smaller places...” he trailed off, examining the names and population estimates with a frown. “So, it's populated by nomads and moisture farmers. There are not many places where they could be and not be drawing attention, presuming they’re on the ground and not in orbit that is.”

Ben cleared his throat before replying. “I've been to Tatooine—Skywalker took me once. The suns look like this planet bound. There is something about the air there too—impossibly arid.”  Ben put his hands behind his back and contemplated the display, eyes narrowed. “Can you change the projection to show the surface, fixing it back to the approximate time I connected with Rey? It might be enough to fathom what part of the planet was midday as both suns were high, almost directly overhead. It will give us a general geographical territory.”

Poe's image nodded and he looked aside out of the hologram to someone else. Kaydel's face flickered into the display. The young woman tapped at a data-pad and the astral map whirled. The image changed to a gradient plan of landmass and then froze. Ben leaned forward; his brown eyes intent on the grid. 

“Damn,” Poe muttered, examining a data-pad he held. Ben turned to his semblance and Poe explained: “We have some aerial shots taken by a charting team. As of three years ago, there was nothing major in that area. It was empty."

"Perhaps they landed and stayed in a ship?" Rose proposed. She sat at the game table, away from BB-8's projection of Tatooine, Poe, and Kaydel.

"And are long gone by now...Again," Byrne mused from where he cleaned his blaster, propped up against a wall. “Or things have changed?”

Ben cursed loudly all of a sudden, kicking himself inside. "Show me the terrain!” he snapped, his ire peeping from under the mellow veneer he'd cultivated since leaving Ahch-To.

Kaydel shrank away. She looked to Poe, but he nodded for her to do as asked.

Ben didn't realise the effect he'd had, too focused on the image put up and the distant ache he felt low in his back—pain which was not his own. “Zero in on the canyon, bottom corner,” he ordered. The image rolled and came into focus. “Closer to the sector edge. And again.” 

 _Could it be_ , Ben wondered?

“What?” Poe asked, catching onto Ben's interest.

Ben twisted abruptly to face the Commander’s image again. “Before I left, the Knights under a directive from Snoke were ordered to find a planet on which to form a new temple. Luke was the ultimate threat. He couldn't just be killed—Snoke wanted to destroy his legend.” Ben hadn’t been alone regarding that. “Snoke had already evolved the Sith in having more than one Force user under his banner. This was one of the sites mooted to build a place to train more. It's one of the few places on Tatooine which has a water source that can be drilled down into. Hundreds of klicks to the west, it finds routes to the surface, forming a number of oases the Jawas use.”

“They've settled in the child home-world of Luke, and the birthplace Vader,” Chewie muttered gravely. “A place they bring Rey's children to be born and raised.”

Ben closed his eyes and said firmly, “I won't let that happen.” He raised his head, not wishing to get side-tracked. “We need recent pictures to know for sure if they're there.”

“We’ll have to fly close to get them, which adds risk. Also it's getting them quickly. Only a couple of our new fighters have the capacity to get there fast.”

“If Maz is still with you, she ripped off some First Order scanners. New tech, it can be used from beyond orbit. Takes a fraction of a second to secure high res' images,” Rose put in.

When Ben raised his eyebrows at her, she explained, “I helped her catalogue the shipment. We figured we might be able to work a bug into the tech.”

Poe motioned to someone outside the projection. “We'll get on it.”

“Quickly. Every moment we delay, it gets more dangerous for Rey,” Ben added impatiently.

Poe's expression showed his own fear. “I hear you. We'll work fast.”

Ben nodded as he brushed Rey's mind with his own. He couldn't grasp her thoughts, only dull pain. Troubled, he pulled back to hear Poe sign off.

“Let's wrap this up. Limit the risk of transmission interception,” Poe said. “We'll be back in touch. Hold tight until then.”

The minutes they waited felt stretched. Finn suggested that they all rest, but Ben couldn't. The  _Falcon’s_  next jump would take them into the Tatoo system and he wasn’t prepared, not for any of it. Since being gathered from Ahch-To, he’d been driven by events. Time to reflect ate away at his confidence. He would soon face his former warriors. Back then, they had virtually been a single identity, with him as their figurehead—the Knights of Ren, commanded by the mighty Kylo Ren—what a horrible joke, he thought now. It wasn’t as if he just had the Knights to contend with. There were the potential clones of his mother to consider. Apprehensive, he paced. He wandered the cargo areas, then the lounge, before finally, his feet brought him to the cockpit. Besieged by old ghosts, he stepped inside reluctantly and stumbled to the pilot's seat. He sat back, only to be overcome by the warm familiarity he found there.

“Dad,” he whispered. “Help me?” No one replied, but Ben could swear he smelt smoke, grease, and leather more strongly than a moment before. He shook his head, cursing his imagination and the actions which had led to this moment. The pain he felt from Rey had been growing steadily in waves. She needed him to be strong, but he felt vulnerable, breakable even. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves, before calling out for another. He feared for a reply. “Luke?”

“What are you doing?” a voice interrupted.

Ben started at Finn's question. So focused on thinking about his family, he'd dulled his peripheral senses.

Arms crossed over his chest, the other man moved closer. Finn glanced over at the controls and then at his former enemy.

Ben debated if to reply. Instead, he asked, “Is this the part where you threaten me?” He kept his voice mild.

Finn glanced at him, one eyebrow down, lips twisted pensively. He shifted to the co-pilot’s chair. “I was concerned you might try and steal the ship—just so you know, Chewie put a lock and alarm on the cockpit. I get a beep each time someone walks in here.”

“Ah,” Ben muttered. He leaned his head back and stretched his neck.

“Ah, indeed. And no, I'm not here to chew you out. Rey would cut me a new one if I did. She's too badass to take crap from me.”

Ben's wide mouth twitched. “But?”

“Oh, but should you hurt her any more than you already have, I won't mess around with lightsabres or blasters this time. I'll get you with my bare hands.”

Ben didn’t have a comeback. He held his hand out.

Finn regarded it suspiciously.

“I'm not asking for forgiveness, I'm asking you to swear something to me,” Ben said. “If I look like I'm about to hurt her or any of you again, you keep that vow.”

Finn reached out slowly and placed his hand on Ben's.

Thirty minutes later, Poe and Kaydel came back on the holocom.

"What are we seeing here?" Finn asked with clear authority.

"A complex of buildings on the surface but with tunnels, we think, deep underground. The images show what looks to be natural water erosion, but from the way they bear, we think they've been added to,” Kaydel informed them. She then added, “Without the location and these scanners—no one would look at this place twice. It’s taken us working the images over in detail to realise that there are heat signatures too, maybe from power cables or fuel expulsion."

“It’s got to be it,” Finn said.

“The pilots who performed the sweep also followed the main path of the underground river. The tunnels disappear beneath an igneous rock range.” Kaydel's fingers skipped over her data-pad and another image appeared on the glowing display. “Klicks to the other side, far into the desert, there is a small construction on the same alinement." It showed a clear aerial shot of a domed centred building, surrounded by a ditch and boundary wall.

"A building?" Rose tilted her head to view it properly. "It’s tiny.” Looking at Ben, she commented, “You said that the nomads use oases—someone could've built a shrine.”

"Do we have back-up if needed?" Finn asked Poe. He gazed at the building and then dismissing it moved to the side of the projection concerning the large complex. 

"The survey ships will rendezvous with you. I'm marshalling others to be a jump away should you need them, but they won't be there for several hours. It's your call if you go in now or wait for the numbers.” 

Finn considered the topographical reports, then Ben. “Do we have time to wait?”

Ben assessed what he could from Rey. The bleakness of his expression told Finn the answer.

“We'll go in.”

Poe watched them; concern etched early lines into his face. “Good luck,” he whispered.

Fading the humans from view, BB-8 adjusted the display to just the information. Finn analysed it.

He touched the image, finger hovering. "We use the shadow of one of the planet's moons. We can catch Guermessa's orbit, follow the line of it and come out right on top of the complex."

***

Ben sat in the cockpit of an unmarked light fighter. The pilot of the survey ship had relinquished it with tight-lipped grace, following Finn's order. The pilot was good, but he wasn't Ben. If this thing went sideways, the fighter was also the more inconspicuous of the two rendezvous ships. Ben figured he might be able to bluff his way in. To add to that air, Ben had changed his outfit, declining a Resistance branded helmet for a plain dark one which hid his face. He'd also skipped the typical orange flight suit for a salvaged jacket he'd found rolled up and used as an impromptu filter in an air vent of the  _Falcon_. Even after all this time, like the  _Falcon_ , it smelt of Han. Dressed all in black, Ben felt more 'him.'

“This is where the fun starts,” Finn commented. His voice crackled from a speaker on Ben's instrument panel.

"Copy that," Ben replied. BB-8 beeped behind him, the droid insisting on travelling with Ben for his own reasons.

 _“Copy Leader_ ,“ followed through the loudspeaker. Ben glanced over his shoulder to where the other survey ship was piloted by a Sullustan named Nei An.

He nodded to the pilot who blinked his large black eyes back at him, face emoting little.

Before Ben, the  _Falcon_  buckled and then vanished into light speed.

Ben readied his fighter:  _Three. Two. One..._  he counted down silently.

The ship gave a jerk and was equally encased in light. It reappeared somewhere else where BB-8 promptly traced the  _Falcon_ and conveyed to Ben that the area was clear.

Ben had other priorities—his awareness of Rey bloomed and he felt her stir. His abdomen twisted up excruciatingly and he gasped before he was able to distance his body from the pain. He trembled as he worked to lock Rey’s reach into his body away. Concentrating on that made flying difficult. BB-8 sent him a query, and then seeming to realise Ben wasn’t responding as he should, took more control.

The ship flew gracefully until it hit the outer atmosphere where it began to rattle and shake as did Ben’s draw to Rey. He came round and took in the landscape. He couldn't pinpoint where she was, only that she was near, along with others that had his senses buzzing.

Below them, under the cover of night, the complex gradually came into sight.

***

"What's your assessment?" the high voice came from behind Ben. Ben scowled and shuffled back from where he’d had goggles trained on the complex. Safely concealed behind a boulder, he sat up and returned the goggles to Nei An.

"It doesn't feel right."

"Right? Nothing about this mission is right," stated the Sullustan, rubbing the side of his wide cheeks. Ben realised what he was hinting at and nodded. He replaced his helmet, glad when it covered his own face.

Two soft whistles signalled the approach of the others led by Finn. The young man crouched down beside Ben as his shipmates settled down in equally cloaked positions. Finn arched an eyebrow, asking for a report.

"The entire parameter is unguarded but the fence is armed and there are latent immobilizer mines buried in the sand," Ben informed him grimly. “It's supposed to look unassuming from above. Down here it merely looks uninviting.”

"Maybe they just forgot our invitation?" Rose who’d followed, muttered to no one in particular.

Byrne, who'd also arrived with Finn, snorted.

Finn cursed under his breath. "Alright.” He signalled back to Chewie, C-3PO, and the pilot Ben had ousted from his ship: a human called Ith'ster. “They're to stay here. Nei An, you too. We need the ships ready to go. If we can get a short-circuit trans through the bedrock, we'll communicate what we find. If you don't hear from us, then Chewie has to think up a new plan when Poe's reinforcements arrive.”

The humans exchanged glances and moved out, leaving the Sullustan pilot to retreat to his ship.

***

Rose and BB-8 stood at the perimeter fence, about four feet apart. Rose held a breaker-box and the droid attached one of his extendable arms with another to the mesh. Rose dropped her hand, once, twice and on the third time, both woman and droid attached a joint cable between the two breakers. The low-frequency noise of the power running through the fence dropped in pitch but didn't spark. The former current now made its pass through this section of the fence via their interference loop. Finn, testing the insertion, placed a bare hand on the wire...and nothing happened.

Observing their success, Finn gestured an affirmative to the others. They spread and cautiously stalked forward towards the fence with weapons held high, mindful of the immobiliser mines their equipment mapped for them.

With a small plasma blade, Ben moved to cut two discreet slits in the mesh and folded it up. He then shifted aside, indicating with his head for the others to pass through. They ducked swiftly and came up the other side prepared. The last person through was Eerin, holding a brush to cover their tracks in the sand. Ben rolled back the mesh, concealing the two minor breaks in its continuity.

At the largest building, they encountered their first bit of resistance. A robed figure stepped out on them, but smoothly, Ben got under them and knocked them out with an elbow to the head before they could raise the alarm. The group bundled the body inside the decorated glass fronted doors, the sentry's breath wheezing through their visor.

“Knight? A Force user?” Finn asked Ben once they were through. Ben stood over the body and examined their energy.

“No. Maybe,” Ben replied. "They feel strange—"

"This door is biometric and code accessed only," Byrne grunted over Ben's analysis. The rebel stood at the controls on the inner security door. From outside, this place looked innocent enough. The internal entrance before them was blast proof.

"Well the biomaterial shouldn't be too much of a problem," Rose said, eyes alert as she nudged the snoring sentry with her boot.

"Can you break the code, droid?" Ben asked BB-8. He stepped aside as the droid rolled past him.

"No sweat,' he says,” Rose told everyone.

“He’s not the one sweating,” Eerin retorted.

***

Ben pressed his hand to the doorplate—his glove coated in a resin holding the sentry's DNA. Positioned either side of him, Finn and Byrne had their weapons trained on the entrance.

The room they entered was similar to all the others that they had passed through, with bare walls and stone laid floors; similar, but not the same. Centrally, before a large skylight was the chair he had seen Rey in when they connected. His footfalls were heavy as he made his way over to it. Getting there, he had to bite back a snarl of frustration at finding it empty.

Rose appeared in the doorway.

“Nothing?”

“No,” Finn replied to her.

“We've found something. A lift.”

Ben took a deep breath aiming to ignore the throbbing doubt which threatened to overthrow his command of his emotions and set toward her. He could feel an uncomfortable coating of damp running between his shoulder blades and down the lines of his stomach.

The lift Rose had found shot down deep underground at high speed and then ran horizontally. It opened up into a hall, at the end of which loomed a huge doorway. It was made of frosted glass and several inches thick. It gleamed an eerie red in the dark. Through it, they could see a vast cavern, carved and blasted down deep into the rock. They walked towards the entrance and stilled when it opened silently at their approach.

"This might be me, but I get the impression maybe they sent an invite after all," Eerin muttered. Her blue eyes were wide as they took in the impossibly large space set out before them.

Ben decided he'd had enough of caution and started across the floor, his stride long. Finn and the team followed as they all scoured their surroundings, taking in the fixings held up high in the vaulted ceiling by cranes and the smaller parts displayed by the segment on long white-topped tables. The items were set out next to holo plans and schematics. Ben walked past them, grimly recognising the construction of cloning technology and worse still, high-grade weapons. 

As they came to the end of the vast cavern, there was another set of huge glass doors. Through these, they could see a long spherical tunnel.

“This place just gets better and better,” Finn muttered.

***

Ben watched as Finn turned the corner with the nose of his blaster first - he clearly wasn't prepared to take any chances. The man walked on ahead down the long clinical corridor. On either side, were wide windows into empty rooms furnished inside with lean made up beds.

"Where is everyone?” Byrne asked rhetorically, his eyes intent on each new room they passed.

Ben wished he knew. He was troubled by how he couldn't reach Rey. The waves of pain still came from her body, but they were distant as if she was only slightly feeling them now. He guessed she’d been drugged again. He didn’t dare envisage the other possibility: that she was dying. Preoccupied, it took him a while to realise that he could sense someone else nearby. Someone who felt like family.

The sensation called to him.

"There’s someone here,” he said softly, head tilted to Finn. “Just ahead.”

“Rey?”

Ben shook his head, and wary, pulled his lightsabre from his belt.

"Stay here. I'll scout it,” Ben replied, hushed. Finn signalled to the others to halt as Ben moved forwards alone. Ben stilled for a second. “Stay alert,” he said in the quietest of tones. “There's more than one individual.”

He moved forward silently, and at the last, charged to physically engage the one combatant who swung a laserscythe at him. Their weapons clashed. Ben froze a blast shot at him as muscle memory led him to spin and throw the scythe fighter he'd engaged over his hip. He flicked the shot he’d arrested back on its course, reversing it into the issuing blaster and sent the other individual flying backwards. He punched his hand forward, fingers spread wide and slammed the fighter’s head into the wall, before kicking the one he'd engaged first in the head, rendering them both unconscious. The hostiles secured, Ben lifted his lightsabre and approached the door they had been guarding. There was a long, clear force field which let light into the room, but he couldn't see anything in the murky shadows beyond. Unlocking the door with a hand from one of the downed fighters, he entered into a large and mostly bare room. All it held was a settle-bed, a shower stall, and differently, a small desk holding a variety of miniature model starships.

It had another exception—it was occupied.

Ben approached the bed, his eyes able to make out the shape of a hand hidden beneath the pallet. It was a small hand—a child's hand. Their soft breathing stirred gentle echoes around the room breaking the tingling of silence in Ben's ears. Coming closer, Ben stopped a foot away and then knelt in a telegraphed move.

He leaned closer and slowly pulled up the covers that hung over, uncovering the figure. The face that stared back at him was not the one he expected. It wasn't a girl with eyes as dark as his own. It was a boy with pale hair, blue eyes, and a nervous expression. Enough of the child's soon to be adult features were formed making the appearance of his future-self unmistakable. 

Ben's breath released in a rush.

"Solo?" Finn came up behind him. The child panicked and thrust his body further under the cot.

Ben waved Finn back. “Get Rose,” he said.

Finn blinked but didn't argue. He backed out.

The boy remained on guard, his breath coming in little huffs.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Ben said, trying to make his voice as soft as he could. He eased away a little, his boots crunching on the gritty stone floor. Carefully he reached up and removed his helmet, exposing his face.

The boy flinched.  

Rose came to the doorway—smaller and softer in tone, Ben figured she would be much less scary than him. But the boy squeaked and curled up further at seeing another person enter.

"Okay then," Ben muttered. He waved Rose back too. “I promise we're not here to hurt you.” He put his helmet down noiselessly and proceeded to remove his one glove. He moved his exposed hand forward slowly, offering it, palm up. He was patient. Eventually, the boy frowned and doubtfully, reached back and put his palm into Ben's. 

Recognition flared through the man.

The child stared at him open mouthed.

So as not to unsettle him, Ben tugged him gently and the boy let Ben pull him out from under the pallet until they knelt opposite one another. The boy didn't twitch. He seemed awestruck.

"My name's Ben. Do you have a name?" Ben asked him after giving him a moment to adjust.

From behind Ben, Rose asked, "Is that?" She stared at the boy rapt.

"Luke got sick—remember what Chewbacca said," Ben said without glancing away from the boy and in the same soft tone he'd used to talk to the child.

The boy flicked his gaze from Ben to Rose.

Unsure if the boy could talk, Ben asked his name again but received no reply.  _"Can you speak?"_   he tried silently, hoping to initiate some response. Ben didn't want to have to read him. He sighed debating with himself, and then almost compelled, said, "Luke?"

The boy dampened his lips and blinked. Breathlessly, he asked, "Are you here to save us?" 

"We're here to find someone," Rose replied honestly.

"My name's not Luke," the boy said after a few moments.

"Who are you?" Ben asked.

The boy shrugged awkwardly. "No one." It was a simple statement.

Ben frowned at him.

"You're not here to hurt Rey, are you?" The boy questioned slowly, peering up at the man.

Ben shook his head. "How do you know Rey?"

"I saw her in the cold world. She was mostly asleep, but she woke up once and took my hand. She's scared about her babies," the child replied.

"Do you know where she is?" Ben prompted.

"Here. She's in pain. Are you going to take me to see her?" the boy asked, suddenly seeming more eager.

"We need to find her first," Ben muttered. Seeing the hope diminish in the boy's expression, he added, “Do you want to help us?” Ben phrased it as a question but he had no intention of leaving the child here.

"I don't really know anywhere."

"That's okay," the man said. "Do you know how many people are holding Rey?" he added.

Fear sent a shiver coasting over the boy's skin. He nodded and then shook his head.

"Don’t worry." Ben moved closer to the boy again and curled a hand around his slim arm. Touching, the familiar feeling came back. "It's okay," he muttered again.

Behind him, Ben felt the others come closer to examine the boy.

"Kid, my name's Finn. Are there more boys like you here?” he asked from where he stood next to Rose. Ben frowned at the question, but the boy didn't seem to object.

"There were. And a girl.” His face paled and he looked downcast. “They're gone now.”

"Solo, we need to keep moving," Finn said gently, obviously sensing the boy couldn't give them much more.

"What happened to them?" Ben asked ignoring him.

"They weren't what _we_  wanted.” The boy's face scrunched up as he tried to recall something. “They didn't have the soul."

"We?" Ben asked.

The boy looked at his knees—a slight obstinacy Ben recognised moulding his features.

"Solo?" Finn repeated, voice emphasising the syllables.

" _We_ doesn’t include you?" Ben continued to question.

" _We_ don't fit the skin,” the child replied.

"What can you tell us?" Ben gently pressed his fingers into the child's flesh to encourage him.

The boy shrank a little. 

"I won't harm you," Ben assured him.

"But I dreamed...you already did," he replied. 

Ben instantly felt ashamed. He whispered, "I promise that won't happen."

The boy inspected Ben’s face and then slumped, seeming to take him at his word. His thin body melted into the man's warm touch. He looked up and said clearly, "I don't let them see my other dreams. I don't let them see the island—the safe place.”

Ben exhaled, and squeezing his eyes shut, pulled the unresisting boy into his lap and stood with him. The child wrapped his arms around Ben's neck and pressed his face into the muscle there.

Ben looked at Finn. Now it was time to move. 


	8. Tatooine: Underground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/ Sorry for the hiatus. A loved one was in hospital for a couple of months. They're much better now thankfully, but it's been a struggle to get back into the writing zone with all the worry.
> 
> 2/ Writer's tip: The Explorer 'read aloud' option is a really useful tool for anyone like me who cannot edit for shit.

Ben positioned them in the middle of the group. As they walked, the child's bare feet bounced against Ben's thighs as his face pressed sweaty against Ben’s neck. The man could feel the child's heart beat firmly abreast of his own. Until now, Ben's priority had been to find Rey. Find her, and her babies. This had consumed his thinking. The feel of the boy's heart prompted him to picture how a heartbeat, Rey's steady pulse, would be the sound going through her girl's tiny ears right at this moment. There was a symmetry to her carrying them as he did the boy that Ben couldn't ignore. He hadn't really considered the babies as being anything other than abstract extensions of Rey. It came to him now how they would in time be children, people in their own right, and that he, Ben Solo, was a part of making them so. _He was a father._ He choked off the images that mushroomed in thinking that as soon as they formed because they were useless to envision. Rey wasn’t having _his_ children. They would be raised as an essentially be, Poe’s. Jealousy coiled before Ben controlled it. Poe was like Han Solo. And Han hadn’t failed Ben as a father. Ben knew he had failed Han as a son.  
  
The child murmured and the lingering envy diluted further, and then washed away. It left Ben feeling empty, but nature abhorring a vacuum, filled him with other doubts as the group shifted further inside the enemy base. “It’s okay,” Ben whispered to the boy, aiming to quiet both his own internal tremors and the child. Silently he promised: _I’m going to get you out of here._  
  
As they reached the end of the corridor bracketed by the small bedrooms, a probe dropped from the ceiling and issued a blinding light. It flashed over them before it retracted and stilled.

"I’m surprised we’ve got this far without drawing any active attention,” Finn said, sounding resigned. The man loosened up his shoulders, easing any tension that lingered in his muscles. 

“Unless they are luring us into the point of no return,” Byrne grumbled in reply. 

Ben stared at the probe and then swung the boy up on his shoulders, freeing his hands. He was pleased he'd replaced his helmet after find the child. “If I have to fight, drop to the floor and hide,” Ben told him. Ben pointed back in the direction that they had come. “If we fail, you take this.” Ben pulled his one glove off. “The doors should open with it. Go that way, use it on the panels. At the other end, there should be a big furry creature, a wookiee. He's Chewbacca, and he will protect you and take you somewhere safe.”

The team jogged forward, speed of the essence until an open doorway slid shut before them, blocking their route. Then the lights went out plunging them into darkness.  
  
BB-8 reacted the swiftest, pulling out a torch.  
  
Rose stepped to the forefront of the group. "It won’t budge!" she exclaimed. Her glove was sprayed with the same bio-matter as Ben’s. It rested against the door panel impotently. “Beebee-Ate?”  
  
The droid rolled forward, but Ben, flooded with haste loosened the child’s lock around his neck and pulled his lightsabre free.  
  
"Stand back."  
  
Rose and BB-8 eased out of the way as he swung high with his lightsabre, and then twisted it, aiming it like a battering ram. The impact of the point resisted at first and then eased in slowly. Heat flared, and molten metal dribbled down the wall. He didn’t have to cut a hole. Wires severed, the door soon sprang open at the attack.  
  
Sabre still lit, Ben grabbed the boy with his free hand as Byrne and Eerin ran around them and ahead. Finn, BB-8 and Rose brought up the rear. Turning on individual torches, they moved cautiously through the darkness. The corridor, a tunnel really, was wide here without the bedrooms, but the gloom limited them to only see a few feet ahead. A short while later, they encountered another locked doorway. And then another. Ben melted their way through them before they reached a forked section of tunnel which led off in three ways.  
  
BB-8 rolled towards an exposed circuit board and hooked in.  
  
“Which way do we go?” Finn asked Ben.  
  
Ben concentrated and then shook his head. “Rey's near, but I'm not a homing beacon,” he snapped but not in any real anger at Finn.  
  
"Poe's reinforcements should be in the system soon." Rose blew her hair off her forehead and then shared a glance with Finn. “It will hopefully give them something to concentrate on above, dividing their attention.”  
  
"But not soon enough. It will take any help forever to get down here," he muttered.  
  
Ben, tensing up, jerked as a sound registered in his keen ears. He nudged his chin towards one of the tunnels. “There are people coming from that way.” His awareness of the incomers flickered. “They're Force users. Rey's not with them,” he whispered.  
  
The team glanced at each other and then looked at the boy. They could all fight if needs be but the boy was vulnerable.  
  
BB-8 shrilled demanding the groups' attention. He quickly said, telling those who could speak droid that he'd managed to confuse some of the security systems ahead so they might move untracked. Finn indicated with his chin toward one of the other tunnels just as the impact of many heavy boots sounded distantly to them all. They dimmed their lights and hid moments before a group of individuals covered head to foot in robes charged down the corridor aiming towards the path that they had just trod.  
  
In the moment that Ben had warned the others, he'd retreated inside to concentrate and thought hard: _There’s no one here. Nothing to see._ He eased over the minds of the charging group, pushing at the spike of interest that collectively came from them, numbing it down. He thought the words over and over until he felt zero from them.  
  
“They're gone,” said a small voice. Someone squeezed Ben's hand and he looked down to where he could just about see the wide eyes of the child shine. “You made them go away,” he continued. “And you didn't hurt them.”  
  
Ben crouched down to the boy's level, still holding his hand. With his free one, he removed the face guard of his mask. “I did hurt them a little. It's not... _good_ , to control other people. All we want is to find Rey. And she wasn't with them.”  
  
The boy gazed at him confused. “Could you have made them tell you where she was if you had hurt them more?”  
  
Ben looked at the floor and then up again. He put his hand near the boy's skull and lightly brushed against his mind with his own. The sensations of loneliness but also hope danced on the surface before the boy recoiled away from his venture. Ben dropped his hand and retreated.  
  
“Your mind is your space. It's not mine to come into unless you invite me. Likewise, their minds are theirs.”  
  
The boy considered him and reached out only with his mind to tickle at Ben's. Ben touched back gently. It felt like a mental handshake. The corners of the boy's lips curled up in the forming of a very shy smile.  
  
“Rey felt like that. Soft. Kind.”  
  
The boy and man came back to themselves.  
  
“Yeah. She's like that to those she loves.”  
  
The boy's smooth forehead crinkled up again. He looked serious. “You made them leave, because you didn't want to kill them, did you.”  
  
Ben inhaled as understanding filtered through him. He laughed at the sad-sweet pain it caused. “Of course.” On pure impulse, he kissed the boy's frown and laughed again. “Yes. I didn't understand when I was a boy...but you do, _don't you?_ That there's a difference between granting mercy to never giving in to the kind of power that leads to having to be merciful.” Ben replaced his face guard and then looked up to the other adults. They stood in a tight group, conferring.  
  
"Why are they only down here, and not on the surface, protecting this place?” whispered Eerin in answer to something Rose had said.  
  
“Protecting a place that no one, aside from us, knows is here? It's insignificant from up top, remember,” Rose replied, not unkindly.  
  
“Still, it's suspect. They could have hit us a fuckton of different ways by now.”  
  
Ben set out to join the conversation but was interrupted as a pulse of pure agony stabbed through his gut. His legs felt damp a moment before his brain re-established what sensations were his and what was foreign. He braced himself against the wall. “They could have, but they have something else to focus on,” he said when he could speak. “I think Rey’s water just broke.”  
  
"Finn?” Rose questioned, eyes huge in the dim light.  
  
Finn cast looks in all directions. “We need to split up.”  
  
***  
  
“With our exit blocked, when we find Rey, we're going to have a really hard battle fighting our way out with her and the child, if not children.” Eerin directed this at Ben. He didn’t nod. He was past being interested in hearing the obvious stated. Byrne followed behind them, Rose and Finn having taken the droid and the boy. Ben had battled with the decision, but how else would they communicate? He felt their connection deeply, like the moment Ben had set eyes on Rey. Being practical he knew he would have a better chance at mind communicating with the boy when one group or the other found her.  
  
At the end of the tunnel, they came to a stairwell and saw an illuminated landing with an impressive, shielded, doorway above. It was guarded. Ben signalled his two companions back. They paused and waited as Ben gauged what to do.  
  
Ben took in the odds. It would be exhausting tricking his way past them. They were not engaged in any other activity than to guard, and seven felt too many minds to hold onto. But, with the element of surprise, he might hold them long enough. If not, then three could be taken down instantly and perhaps the rest quickly if he and the rebels held their heads. Hopefully, they could leave a couple conscious to interrogate and give them an idea of where to search.  
  
Crouching, he meditated as collectively the guards twitched, sensing something...Ben closed his eyes taking a calming breath before he stood in an abrupt move, took three long strides, then using the handrail of the steps and a boost, hauled himself up onto the landing. The guards' reactions seemed in slow motion to him. Their responses not instinctive, but as if they were waiting upon a relay of communication to act. He flew up as frame-by-frame, their weapons followed him a fraction of a second behind.  
  
“Stop!” he ordered. The guard by the door froze totally still for a second, but his hand shook closer to the keypad and the exit. Ben tried to wrap his will around them—he didn't want to have to kill them, but he wasn't Luke. He could feel that old lustful rage coiling through his head and heart like an additive lover, urging him to give into it. “Please,” he begged. Nothing of their thoughts came back to him but, a finger twitch here, a thigh flex there, he knew they grappled against his hold.  
  
From the stairs, he heard the stamp of footfall as the two Resistance fighters followed. The guard at the keypad managed to make a fist and Byrne taking no chances, lifted and shot them. By his side, Eerin did the same. Two guards when down. Two more in the blink of an eye. Ben's fragile grasp on the guards' bodies shattered and the closest stepped forward, raising a glittering sythe which hummed with deadly energy.  
  
Ben's lightsabre was in his hand and ignited, meeting the attack before the other guards dropped to their knees and returned fire. Ben ducked the shot aimed at his shoulder. He didn't see it, but he heard Byrne give a grunt and drop heavily. As he parried the guard with the staff, he glanced at his downed ally and saw blood seeping from a wound seared dead centre on his chest.  
  
There was no cover.  
  
"Down!" he hissed pushing at Eerin with the Force. His shove sent her tumbling down the flight of steps. The guard he faced took advantage of Ben's distraction and slammed him back against the railing on the landing. Ben grunted and shoved back angrily, taking a hasty swipe to give him some leg space together as he deflected a blast aimed at his sabre hand. He dove flat on his stomach and Eerin, below, sent a superbly placed shot through the guard's arm. She then aimed downwards and fixed them another through the thigh, tearing the bone out of the flesh like a snapped twig. Next to her, Ben clipped the hip of the guard aiming to run for the doorway. Eerin then zapped a shot between the eyes of the remaining man. Five down, two to question. _Perfect plan._ Ben glanced at the still form of Byrne by his feet.  
  
Eerin knelt by the dead man's side and after a moment of silence, closed his eyes gently.  
  
_Almost perfect._  
  
The death registered with Ben surprising him. He had begun to get used to Byrnes' wry no-nonsense personality. He had begun to _like_ the former Stormtrooper.  
  
The guards who remained made no comment as Ben approached. They sat motionless, barely panting.  
  
"Tell us where Rey is—the pregnant woman!” Eerin ordered. She shook her plasma blaster with intent. Ben could hear the withheld tears in her voice, pain caused by the death of Byrne. They must have been friends, he realised then.  
  
Ben didn't speak, he just moved closer, using his size to dominate the injured guards. When that clearly made no impression, he lifted one foot half an inch over the one guard's broken bone. The guard remained unresponsive. Ben's pity withered as he felt phantom pain stab through his abdomen again. He pressed his boot hard onto the wound. Their leg jerked but the pain didn't seem to link with their brain; Ben could almost sense the cut off, like a blown fuse.  
  
"What the?" Eerin began, staring at the guard. Ben dipped and swiftly detached their helmet. His hand lowered the head armour to the floor slowly in shock.  
  
The face Ben uncovered was humanoid, but featureless. It had no lips, no lashes, no nose. It wasn't to his eyes ugly, exactly, just unformed. Eerin twisted to the other figure and removed their helmet too. They both looked the same, smooth, sexless, ageless. She tried to rouse a response from this guard by pinching their cheek, but like their compatriot, they didn't respond. Their eyes held a similar disassociated look.  
  
Ben knelt, and his sympathy deeply locked away but his sense of self-disgust high, rose his hand to the side of one figure's head. He paused before going further. His match found in Rey, he mustered against any relay he might get back, including his own conscience. Braced, he pushed out and found...not a thing. _Blankness._ Whatever thoughts they might once have had, had been wiped. He pressed over the one’s wound again, not as hard, but again nothing emitted from them. Even a clone Stormtrooper injected with battle adrenaline would respond to this level of pain.  
  
“It's like they're droids—fleshly droids. Unprogrammed ones,” he said.  
  
"Are they former Knights?" she asked him. “Have they remodelled their faces?”  
  
"Maybe.” He sat back on his haunches. “I couldn't say for sure.” He looked at her directly. “From adolescence, we were taught to hide our faces. Our missions mostly concerned infiltration. Being recognised exposed us to unnecessary interest, even from each other. Physical attraction wasn't permitted. Also...”  
  
“What?”  
  
"It doesn't matter. Let's move.” He stood.  
  
“Tell me. It's important.”  
  
“What's important, is finding Rey.”  
  
Eerin grabbed his hand. “Do you know why I came on this mission?”  
  
Ben was tempted to snap back that he could easily find out, but he held his tongue.  
  
The woman drew him away from the downed guards and whispered fiercely in his ear. “I came because I want to believe that I can forgive. My family were on Hosnian Prime. For a long time, I was filled with rage. And all it brought me was pain. Until I met Byrne. I didn't know what he was, what he'd been, and before I knew, I cared about him. He was my friend and a Stormtrooper. Betrayal filled me when I found out. Then more rage. I forced him away. Then one day, he sought me out and made me listen. We talked and I understood his life. I understood the horror he felt in the moments when clarity came to him, before they took that feeling from him too. Before _you_ took that feeling.”  
  
“I get it, you had sympathy for him and you blame me,” Ben said. “You should.” He reared away.  
  
“Shut up!” she snarled quietly and pursued. “I never had sympathy for you. You were born into the best kind of world. But you let power corrupt you. Yet Rey, she spoke of your choice to be better and I had to decide if I was going to carry on raging because deep inside, I hadn't forgiven Byrne. But I figured if I could see you as a man and not a monster, then finally, I would forgive him for his part. Now, _now_ , I'll never get the chance because he's dead.” She panted as she spoke those last words and then fixed him with a furious look. He met her gaze. She snorted and took two steps away. Ben witnessed her struggle for composure. “Tell me what you were going to. I only know the public side of what you did. I want to know if you did worse to your allies than you did to your… _enemies_ ."  
  
Ben regarded her and then nodded. He spoke fast, knowing hesitancy wouldn’t make what he'd done any better. “With Snoke’s help, we infiltrated their minds. The Knights of Ren were slowly becoming an extension of my, our, will, rather than individuals. Their notion of autonomy was a myth. But when Snoke died, I felt that tether snap. I thought they’d run. But they had been enthralled by his power long ago, just as I had. They remained loyal, disciples…the damage done. Facing who you are, what you have become is one of the hardest realisations anyone can come to.” Ben thought back to his conversation with Rey about this subject, the night she had conceived. He thought briefly about how much he loved her, and what he’d do for her. He also thought about the woman before him who had lost all those she loved, loved again, and then lost him too. He thought about how he was the cause of all that pain. “The Knights of Ren yearned for me to prove myself the equal of The Supreme Leader. But I am no equal. I’m nothing.”  
  
The woman pulled back to stare at him. Like his concealed face, and like the guard’s minds on the floor a few feet away, her face emoted little.  
  
“Thank you for your honesty,” she replied at last.  
  
Eerin then clicked her weapon up and pointed it right between the eyes of one guard's face and shot them. She turned to the other and did the same.  
  
"Let's move..." she said and stepped towards the doorway.  
  
Ben cast one last look at Byrne's body before he moved after her. The woman held herself carefully—she could have given his mother a run for her money at being inscrutable.  
  
***  
  
At the door, Ben and Eerin paused; the woman began to fish in her pants' pocket for her decoder. Ben, feeling it was worth a try, lifted one of the dead guard's hands to the keypad, and surprisingly it opened easily. Like the door upon entering the complex above, this subterranean one could withstand any serious attack. They walked across a thick alloy band which had a deactivated inner and outer forcefield. The already entrenched unease that burdened Ben bloomed, and then he cursed as the door slid shut swiftly behind them and a sizzling red light spread over it.  
  
Eerin slammed a hand against the forcefield, hissing at the shock, as Ben ran towards another door which was rapidly closing before them. He examined the density of the metal and plasma with his senses and swore again. The lightsabre trick wasn't going to work here.  
  
"Shit!" Eerin said. "It won't open."  
  
"This one is also impenetrable," he replied stonily.  
  
They turned to face one another and then scanned the rest of the small, sealed space. There was very little to see save each other. They didn't get time to get bored of the other's looks as something soon whirred above. Ben followed the sound with his eyes. Out of a concealed pocket in the ceiling, a probe flashed over them as before.    
  
It zipped back in, seconds later, for a gas to begin to spurt out from the same crease the probe had dropped from.  
  
Ben held his breath as the white flurry filled the room. Eerin's eyes batted closed. Concerned it was poison rather than a sedative, he ripped his face guard off and reached for her, but she sank before he could blow air into her mouth. He felt for a pulse, and while slow, her heart remained beating. Relief settled in him as he readied his own body to stay awake.  
  
From the vaults of his mind, lessons with Luke surfaced. _Take your breath in Ben…that’s it, now hold it and concentrate on your heart and lungs. You want them to slow, but not stop. Think about creatures that hibernate, think about their metabolism…feel the latent energy in your body's cells keeping you alive even as your lungs demand you breathe, like in that first breath you took beyond Leia’s body._  
  
A faint banging noise from outside of the trap had him tightening his grip on his unlit sabre. He knew it wasn't the cavalry: it was from the wrong direction and the presences of the people were an empty space, a void in his sensory grasp of that area.  
  
The banging stopped as soon as it had started, and another light flashed over his face. Ben blinked stupidly, momentarily regretting leaving his face guard off.  
  
_"My Lord, Kylo Ren. This is a surprise!"_ The voice, already known to Ben from being inside Rey's head, bounced around the little room. _"Oh dear, this has become a little awkward, hasn't it. You may lower your weapon. We're no threat to you."_  
  
The door which had closed before Ben and Eerin opened with a hiss. The forcefield faded. Beyond, more robed figures, faces and minds hidden behind masks, awaited.  
  
_"Please, my Lord. Follow the Flesh. You are most welcome. We've been looking for you for a very long time."_  
  
Ben, lightsabre still in hand, argued with himself about what to do. It was a short argument. He lowered the weapon and reached up to remove his helmet. One mask dropped to the floor—he shook his head, freeing his hair, and then set his spine ramrod straight—another mask adopted.  
  
He gestured with one hand for the robed figures to move ahead: _take me to your leader_ , he thought with sarcasm.


End file.
